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As an aside, 18/16/16 seems like a lot of agility for a strength build. Strength is efficient with initiative instead of stamina so less investment in agility to put more points into strength and stamina might make it work better.
Agility opponents can't do anything, I usually win in the second round, sometimes in the first.
Strength opponents usually lose in the first round but the match is pretty close since they hit hard and I get damaged every time I hit them.
Stamina opponents were the hardest, usually takes 3-4 rounds and the match is often pretty close.
Most enemies cannot do anything at all. Any enemy with half my initiative and no skills to make me waste initiative are guaranteed to be able to do nothing, at the cost of 6 tonus/round. Most enemies go down in the first round when using Tonus. Or the 2nd when not using Tonus.
That is at 30+ agi. Before that point, I had to heavily rely on dodging and dealing small damage. Agi enemies used to be the easiest to beat for me, but now it's basically whoever has the lowest agi. I currently have 12 initiative, so anyone with 6 initiative or below is usually unable to damage me, and there are still plenty of these in the 1st division.
Currently 7 str, 32 agi, 24 sta. At 27 sta you can unlock a modifier that greatly increases damage of an attack for high (15) energy cost. With this you can be a highly evasive powerhouse without using any tonus.
Agi was the most fun to play for me in PC1, and I think it's the same here. While indeed Agi AI is usually easier to beat than the other schools, the fact that you can empty enemy initiative before they have a chance to attack, and even when not doing so, evade pretty much every attack using little to no energy. It feels OP.
Agility is the most fun. The agility school is heavily about weaponizing superiority in initiative, including by using fancy dodges that require high agility and mostly expend initiative instead of energy. You can use passive buffs and defense modifiers to skyrocket their chance of success even higher, and leave your opponents swinging at air. Then, you can use MORE modifiers to do things like gain more initiative on successful dodges, take initiative from your opponents on successful dodges, and otherwise set things up so that your opponent is taking damage when they miss you AND when you're hitting them. If you enjoy being so good at something that nobody can handle you, I recommend agility.
I think Stamina may actually be the most powerful. Having beaten the game with all three main stats, the Turtle skill set is just insanely powerful against every conceivable human opponent in the game. Probably my favorite stamina builds at endgame are the ones with tons of passive and modifier buffs boosting energy regeneration to insane levels, but that also equip an attack modifier that insanely raises the cost of all your actions. This skill allows you to actually turn that insane energy pool into insane power. After having more energy than anybody for the whole game up to that point, it is fun to put your foot on the gas and actually spend that energy even faster than you can bring it in.
I found strength the hardest to work with for most of the first half of the game. Things are very difficult until you reach 14 strength and learn you first non-defense defense. I still found Elbow Block to be the easiest Bear defense to work with. The Bear tree revolves a lot around reflecting damage instead of blocking or dodging, but the arithmetic behind this strategy seems pretty shaky to me. I've never won a fight that way and had much HP left at the end, but it is handy when you're out of energy while an opponent is out of health, which can very much happen after the first round of fights with a strength build.
In order to KO the Bear, the Monkey must deal 280 damage. If they do all of this with attacks, then 60% of 280 is 168. Off the bat, this means that the Monkey will most likely knock themselves out trying to KO the Bear. Sounds pretty good, right?
The problem here is that All In not only reflects 60% damage, but INCREASES damage taken by the Bear by 60%. It's a break-even that distributes equal damage to both parties but when you account for the original base damage of the attacker, this is not a good deal for the Bear unless the HP difference is really enormous.
Now let's say that the Monkey deals 180 damage to the Bear, who is defending with All In.
The Monkey will take 108 damage from All In, while the Bear will actually take 278 damage before accounting for possible modifiers like Armored Forehead. So, the Monkey only needs to sacrifice 60-70% of their health to take out the Bear. This seems like a better deal, considering that the Bear can hopefully widen this gap by landing some direct shots on the Monkey.
However, if the Monkey is using something like Counterattack, All In does not reflect reflected damage, so this tug of war works both ways.
My point is that I've never found berserker defenses to be much more effective than just doing literally nothing. They are very energy efficient, and can be a nice firewall when you have an advantage of hundreds of health. If your opponent has 70 health left while you have over 200, then it becomes a much better deal. However, early game Bears don't have enormous pools of health, just a few dozen more health than normal. And late game Monkeys and Turtles tend to have respectable strength and health pools, at least 50% of what the Bears have. Bears have a health advantage, but usually not such a dramatic one that using berserker defenses in Round 1 makes sense against basically anybody.
One of my favorite Bear methods for beating Desperado, the game's toughest Turtle outside of a VR environment, is to open with a block-breaking strategy. Smasher style, Elbow Block, attacks chosen to debuff his blocking and unleash punishment. Going into Round 2, I usually have depleted at least 75% of my energy and 65% of his health.
Going into Round 2, I might then switch to a Berserker build that uses All In, Armored Forehead, etc, since having 200+ health against his 75 makes the math make sense. By that stage of the fight, I'm using instakill driven attacks like Polar Star First.
I wouldn't say Berserker builds are USELESS, but I've only ever been satisfied with their results against badly wounded opponents. Most of the time, it's Flycatcher against a dodger, Smasher against a blocker, and Smasher with blocking against a brawler while I try to take a huge health lead. I might use Berserker against a badly wounded Tiger who is dodging everything, but if they aren't almost down then it's far simpler and more reliable to use Flycatcher, debuff their dodges at every opportunity, and rain down on them with 1 initiative attacks.
-Reduces damage received from any attack that you attempt to neither block nor dodge. This is like an innate Armored Forehead that can be stacked with the other one.
-20% increase to damage dealt and energy consumed. This is useful for any high-strength build, but it's especially useful for a berserker who needs to shorten their opponent's health pool and build a lead.
-3 energy regenerated every time you are attacked and don't try to block or dodge.
-25% increase to damage dealt once you are down to 25% health or less. Losing 75% of your health is very likely when you're using a skill that increases damage taken by 60% while reflecting that same amount. This means Berserkers on low health deal 145% of normal damage, which further improves the geometry in their favor. I don't like building plan A around what happens when my strength build is down to double digit health, but that's what this is for.
If you use blocking or dodging, 2/4 of these benefits are completely negated, leaving you with increased damage and the very helpful feature of having 4 modifier skill slots. In order to make a Berserker build work, I would recommend the modifiers Armored Forehead (reduces damage when not blocking/dodging, just like the Berserker's innate buff) and Charging (increases energy regeneration when using defense initiative other than to block or dodge. This includes doing nothing, or using a berserker defense.)
Flycatcher:
-Restores some health at the beginning of each round
-All strikes have a small chance of pushing enemies back. Dodgers automatically give up some ground that they may or may not reclaim, depending on what dodges and modifiers they are using. As a result, lower tier dodge artists like Boris the Bullet Dodger frequently back themselves into the ropes, where dodging no longer works. So, pushback makes life even worse for a dodger unless they're well built and can hold their ground while dodging.
-Increased damage against enemies on the ropes. If you have 7 initiative and use only 1 per attack, and your enemy is on the ropes, you will land 7 consecutive attacks for increased damage. They're really gonna be wanting that bell to ring.
-General debuff to enemy dodge success chances. This is extremely useful by itself, but the best anti-dodge builds in the game invove stacking this innate buff with attack modifiers and specific attack choices.
Flycatcher is one of my favorite builds, but roughly 3/4 of its innate buffs are only particularly useful against dodgers. It's possible to force a Bear or Turtle to the ropes solely with pushback, but this is too much trouble as you'd almost certainly run out of time or knock them out before they reached the ropes. So, Flycatcher is exclusively a style for Bears hunting Monkeys.
Smasher:
-Increased energy restoration between rounds
-10% increase to damage dealt if the opponent has lower strength. (If you're even using this style, they should always have lower strength.) No energy cost increases and this buff works from the very beginning of the fight, so IMHO it will get you more damage overall than something that only kicks in when you're 3/4 knocked out.
-Reduced enemy block effectiveness
-Increased energy cost for enemy blocks
Smasher is the best Bear style in the game for beating blockers, and IMHO also for defeating berserkers who still have a large pool of health. If you're using a modifier like War of Attrition to reduce your energy costs throwing blocked attacks, then the extra energy from the innate buff goes a long way. If you are using Destructor to reduce enemy block effectiveness, it will stack with the innate buff and your enemies will block a lot less of the damage you're throwing, while also paying higher energy costs just to hold back the tide.
My only criticism of Smasher is that it has a completely unnecessary FOUR slots for defense skills, when I don't even have four defense skills worth using. There's a regular or an elbow block, the three berserker defense skills, or Close In, which doesn't reflect/increase damage but takes an extra initiative and thus shortens your opponent's turn. Whether I'm blocking, berserking, or closing in, I tend to spam the same skill in all slots. However, Smasher has only TWO(!!!!) modifier slots, which is a weakness. I hate having to choose between block penetration, block avoidance, energy cost reduction, or damage increasing, some of which have multiple worthwhile options. All you can do is prioritize your highest two priorities and hope for the best.
In Round 1 against a berserker, I usually lead with Smasher, mitigate damage taken with Elbow Block, go on a wild offensive with something with a high damage-to-initiative ratio like Clothesline, then use Bloodlust to really crank up the pain. If everything proceeds as desired, after one round of that the opponent is down 75% of their health while I am only down 50% of their health. With hopefully a 2:1 health advantage and most of my energy gone, NOW I can reverse strategies and reflect damage more confident that they'll go down first.
IMO berserker is still a good choice when going with an anti block or anti dodge setup. The extra damage is good no matter what, and you can dedicate the extra passive slots to a lot of anti-dodge or anti-block passives. I.E feint, hail of blows, stop in time or handbrake and then armored forehead or bloodlust. The bonus at 25% hp is definitely the least appealing of the bunch, but the other bonuses are solid and it's a nice little extra when it does trigger.
See now, I'm pretty sure that push is useless if you're not playing a monkey build yourself. Push only triggers if you manage to hit your opponent, and most characters that try to dodge already fall back if they're hit, only getting return when they dodge successfully. Boris is an exception in that you can only hit him when he's on the ropes(but he never gets return, so you can get him there easily), making it so that push can never trigger. I've never seen a dodger fall back two spaces, so I don't think using push against them really makes them fall back more than they would otherwise.
The increased damage against an enemy on the ropes is useful when you can get them there. But unless you're facing someone without return like Boris, it's hard to get them there. You simply don't get to make a ton of attacks. Dodge based opponents have an initiative advantage, so it's also easy for them to pry themselves off the ropes when you do get them there. The on the ropes bonus just isn't going to trigger very often.
The dodge chance debuff is useful, but the rest of the flycatcher kit leaves much to be desired.
Extra defense slots don't really hurt you unless you're slotting tonus skills into them, they just make it easier to reach the thresholds for the style passives. That said, the lack of passives slots is a huge disadvantage. I always ask myself: "Are these two anti-block buffs worth two passives slots?" And the answer is always no. Increasing the turtle's energy cost on block isn't worth as much as decreasing block chance or block effectiveness (or decreasing your own energy consumption on blocked attacks), and you'll have enough of those to fill all of berserker's slots.
Using smasher against a berserker is wild. The only advantage smasher has over berserker is energy efficiency, since you have the energy regeneration buff and the 10% boost against lower strength opponents helps energy efficiency more than berserker's damage boost, though the increase in initiative efficiency is reduced. But you're up against a bear, all your attacks are gonna land, so are you really at risk of running out of energy before you run out of health?
(Related, I stopped training strength at 25, used a stat booster to grab bloodlust, clothesline and elbow block when I had the gpp for it and started focussing on the other stats, so the damage boost wouldn't even have triggered against end game berserkers for me.)
The extra modifier slots are pretty much the only thing I like about berserker if I'm not using a berserker defense. Using the abilities you describe is why I really like having 4 slots, but against a berserker you don't need much other than bloodlust/armored forehead.
What I'm not sure you're grasping is that Flycatcher has *innate* use of anti-dodge buffs, and Smasher has *innate* use of some anti-block buff. So, with no modifiers at all they are already enjoying the same benefits as a berserker build that is using those skills. On top of this, Flycatcher/Smasher can then use those skills and stack them with the innate buffs for a quality of defense penetration that Berserker is not able to achieve, ever. Using Flycatcher against a dodger is like having 7 buffs active, and being able to double-dip on some of the most important ones. Ditto for using Smasher against a blocker.
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Sorry, but there is a lot here that is not correct.
1. Not all fall backs are contingent on a successful dodge. A monkey using cheap dodges plus Pendulum must dodge successfully to fall back, since their defense modifier needs a successful dodge to activate. A monkey using a more sophisticated dodge like 1001 winds will pay much higher costs, but they won't fall back in the first place. If you want to push back a low level dodger like Boris, you mostly just need to keep swinging, and try to take his initiative so his turns are shorter and don't eat the clock. If you want to push back a monkey with 5000+ GPP who is using expensive dodges that don't fall back, and who isn't using Pendulum because they don't need it, then you need to use pushes. If your opponent has 30 agility and is running Crystal Monkey, they're going to dodge the vast majority of your attacks, so besides debuffing their dodge chances you want to put them on the ropes to disable their main line of defense. Pushing a Bear or Turtle to the ropes with pushes is possible, but the extra damage doesn't really make it worth it. The big bonus to pushing a Monkey to the ropes is that they can't dodge, so if you can get them to the ropes you can land 100% of your strikes and do enormous damage. The Flycatcher build just boosts this type of damage to make the ropes extra awful for a monkey opponent.
2. It is not impossible to hit Boris before he's on the ropes. He has an extremely high dodge success rate, but even a 100% dodge success rate can be debuffed down to something manageable. Every primary stat has an anti-dodge style, and it should be used against him for one debuff. Most primary stats have an anti-dodge chance attack modifier, and that should be used too. Most styles have attacks that innately debuff dodge chance, and under the burden of three debuffs Boris will still get some dodges in but he seems pretty normal, in additional to falling back wildly. He probably does feel pretty impossible to hit if you're misusing Berserker against him, though.
3. Flycatcher leaves nothing to be desired against a dodging opponent, since every single one of its innate buffs is extremely useful against them. Some of them can be combined with essential anti-dodge modifiers for levels of dodge reduction achievable ONLY by an anti-dodge fighting style.
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1. Extra defense slots don't hurt, but they are a waste. If I were using tonus blocks or tonus dodges, then having multiple slots would at least serve the purpose of attaching a higher cost to spamming them. Using Elbow block 4/4 times is mainly the same as using it 3/3 times. Smasher would really benefit from a third modifier slot instead of a fourth defense slot, is all.
2. Against a blocking opponent, anti-block debuffs are worth 2 passive slots and 2-3 attack modifier slots. You want to reduce block chance, reduce block effectiveness, and increase block cost as much as possible if you are able. These benefits stack and they are all good investments that mean spending less energy to deal more damage in less time.
3. Using your own logic, the only advantages berserker has over smasher are increased damage below 25% health, slightly higher damage that is offset by increased energy costs, and a couple benefits to berserking defense. For my criticisms of berserking defense, I'd refer you to the math in my previous comment. Assuming we're using blocks or Close In, 2/4 of the innate Berserker buffs are of no benefit, and the rest are not gamechangers relative to Smasher. Smasher's energy regeneration helps sustain the use of Elbow Block, which is a much better defense than All In for every purpose except energy conservation.
In the first round against a berserker, my typical build is Smasher/Closeline/Elbow Block/Bloodlust. Almost nothing else really adds anything. I block the majority of the damage they throw at me, then throw a ton of damage myself, and lose half my health taking more than half of theirs. This wild offensive also drains my energy quickly, but it builds a fast and dirty health lead, which opens up berserking as a more viable option.
In the second round against a badly wounded berserker, my typical build is Berserker/Polar Star First/All In/Armored Forehead, Charging, Bloodlust.
This is basically the only recipe that lets me defeat a berserker with a Bear with more than 100 health left at the end, and not depending on RNG. Using a monkey or turtle, there are dedicated styles that buff damage to non-defending opponents and fix the math so I can knock them out without knocking myself out.
1. No, that can't be right. I've played through the game twice, once with monkey and once with bear, never using push against dodging opponents. I would still push them back.
From 39:17 in this video, there is a guy using torturer(which doesn't come with push skills) without any push passives, using low kicks against an opponent with afterimages. When he gets a hit in, the opponent moves back.
https://youtu.be/XCupIkiuJLM?feature=shared&t=2357
2. I've never tried to hit him outside of the ropes. I figured they gave him a dodge chance of more than 100% to stop you from hitting him with buffs, but I guess you've tried and that's not the case?
3. Sure, if you want to maximize your dodge reduction as a bear, you need to use flycatcher. I don't believe the tradeoff for this maximisation is worth it.
1. Extra slots mean you don't have to fill up your attack slots to reach the smasher bonusses. You can slot in double inhale or leave them empty to regenerate stamina. I agree that smasher would be a lot better with a third passive slot, but at the same time I don't believe the total amount of slots for a style is fixed.
2. Let me phrase this differently: Smasher has 2 block debuffs. One of which is good(-block effectiveness) and one of which is mediocore(+energy cost for blocks). You have 4 passives that help deal with blocks: Destructor, anger train/war of attrition, blind spot and penetrating attack. To get the two buffs that smasher offers, you have to sacrifice two of those passives. Since increasing energy cost doesn't help much against a turtle, it's not worth it to give up a passive for that extra energy cost.
3. I am not saying that the benefits of smasher are lackluster just because I can count them. I am saying that the two benefits of smasher over berserker against a berserker both help your energy efficiency. Because energy efficiency is not very important against a bear, it is not a good choice to use against one.
3.1. I think I used breakthrough against berserkers and never switched to elbow block. Maybe elbow block with smasher is as effective as you say, I can't judge that.
1. I'm glad you know your stuff! I've also beaten the game as a Monkey, Turtle, and Bear, as well as both Police and Sensei. When you played as a Monkey, some of your styles had innate push, as does Flycatcher. Monkeys derive defensive benefit from pushing, since this helps keep themselves off the ropes. As for the low kicks from torturer, you may have a point there, if we presuppose reasonably that Afterimages isn't simply lacking an automatic fall back. I’m usually more of a 1001 Winds guy, but lacking hard info I'll concede that point.
However, making your larger point that pushing Monkeys is pointless requires observing what happens when a matchup like that runs Trapper and uses Spartan Kicks. From personal experience, a Trapper throwing Spartan Kicks will put almost anybody on the ropes if they don't get knocked out first, but only a Monkey will become incapable of defending themselves there and get torn apart. Pushing a Bear against the ropes isn’t really worth it. Perhaps this is because it is possible to stack push with a dodger’s failure to fall back for a double loss of ground, but I can assure you it’s not nothing.
2. There are lots of ways to hit Boris outside of the ropes. I'm pretty sure his bullet-dodging skill only works a limited number of times per round, so you can throw super long combos and wear him out. You can absolutely debuff the dodge success of enemies with 100% dodge; 100% or even 200% is not infinite. The very last enemy in the game has 99 agility, a dodge with something like a 100% success rate, and an innate buff that significantly buffs dodge success. The best way to beat them, IMO, is Flycatcher/Close Overhand/Take Aim/Feint/Short Blows. Anything that “always,” works is referring to BEFORE you debuff it to hell.
3. Maximization is absolutely worth it when many of your attacks might be hitting for 20-40 damage and costing almost as much in energy. Most defense success chance debuffs are worth at least 10% individually, and stack. That adds up. I can understand saving one modifier slot for an energy saving skill like Handbrake, but innate buffs aren’t so easily repurposed.
Against any opponent in the game, you want to maximize your reduction of whatever defensive method they use. Against a blocker, block reduction/penetration are both enormous priorities. Against a dodger, dodge reduction is an essential factor in how much damage you end up dealing. Against a brawler, this mostly takes the form of damage bonuses against non-defending opponents. Brawling defenses create a sort of health bar pissing contest, so anti-brawler attacks and attack modifiers mostly have to do with tilting that contest. Anti-Brawler styles like Tiger and Strategist deal bonus damage against non-defending opponents to improve the math in their own favor. Against literally any enemy in the game, it is always wise to make a high priority of stacking opportunities to undermine whatever defense they use, including none.
1. By the time I even have access to the Smasher style, unlocking the bonuses is pretty easy, but OK, I'll agree to this as a valid point. The total amount of slots for a style isn't fixed, but they tend to balance out this way, and nothing in the game has 12 total slots, let alone the 15 that the UI makes room for. There are rare styles with 5 of something, but they always fall short somewhere else. The most balanced styles in skill slots tend to have like 3/3/3, but the really specialized styles are sometimes designed to be forced to make tough choices without easy compromises.
2. +energy cost for blocks is a big deal against late-game Turtles who are built around spendthrift fighting styles, that have huge energy pools and use them to fund extravagantly expensive skills like Hadouken, Cleaver, Leg Cannon, and Burst of Rage. Besides blocking defenses, Turtles are about having and generating tons of energy, then spending it wildly to make things happen. Making their blocks expensive doesn't stop them from defending themselves, but it does force them to spend their stellar energy regeneration on defense instead of using it to throw Hadoukens or kick you in the groin.
You're right that Smasher can't use all of the eligible modifier skills for undermining a blocker. However, separating these skills into buckets screws up your arithmetic. I usually prioritize Blind Spot (10% nerf to block success) and Destructor (10% nerf to block effectiveness) as the most powerful offensive choices. If I'm having energy troubles, I may replace one of them with War of Attrition. Both of these skills globally reduce around 10% of blocked damage by one means or another. The innate buff against block effectiveness gives us a third 10%, and the innate buff for increased damage against lower-strength opponents gives us another 10% through sheer brute force. This gives us a total of 40% defensive mitigation, rivalling what can be accomplished with 4 modifiers. Stacking Destructor with Smasher means that enemy blocks are only 80% effective, which becomes problematic when you account for Bear-level gross damage, especially with that 10% bonus sitting on top. The rewards for using a block-bypassing attack like Liver Kick are only greater when you've stacked debuffs against block success and effectiveness, undermining the ways your damage can be stopped.
3. I'm not saying that Smasher is ideal against a berserking opponent, but that Berserker is severely overrated UNLESS you're going to use a berserking defense yourself. Berserker offers 2 innate buffs that depend on a berserking defense, and a 3rd that depends on being in critical health. Only the increase to damage/energy cost is even useful if you're on high health and using a blocking defense. If I want to increase my damage in exchange for a higher energy cost, I can spam long combos of Clothesline.
If an enemy deals 100 attack damage to you while you're using All In, you will take 160 damage and they will take 60 damage, so your damage reflection is really a break-even proposition that serves to shorten the fight to nobody's direct benefit. When I use berserking against a berserker with much lower stats and worse skills than my own, what usually happens is an incredibly fast and bloody exchange, where I win in the first round with like 30 health remaining. Had I used a normal defense, I would probably have 100-200 health remaining and left less to chance, even if I won in the 2nd round. The use of Berserker/Armored Forehead/Charger can make this less of a raw deal, but it's an enormous journey to hopefully break even. You shouldn't need 35-40 strength to make a style of defense work reasonably well against everybody.
Comparing Smasher vs. Berserker when using a blocking defense (can't use half the benefits of Berserker) against a non-defending opponent (can't use half the benefits of Smasher):
-Smasher boosts energy regeneration, and boosts damage by 10% with a stat requirement, with two modifier slots available.
-Berserker increases damage globally by 20% with a corresponding increase in energy consumption, and another 25% when on low health, with four modifier slots available
Based on innate buffs alone, Berserker offers 10% more damage and 20% more energy costs, and that's it. If I want high energy costs and damage, I don't need buffs. I can just fill my entire attack lineup with Clothesline (costs only 1 initiative), and the sheer length of my combos will result in brutal damage and explosive energy costs. Free energy is more flexibly useful, and 10% free damage is more flexibly useful than damage that is offset by cost increases or a requirement to be in critical health.
So, that speaks to the INNATE buffs, but not the modifier slots. I know that those four modifier slots sound really yummy, but there are very few attack modifiers that are actually useful against a Berserker. Bloodlust is useful from the Bear style, and Aggressive Scream/Break Rhythm can be useful from the Basic School, but other than that the quality anti-berserking modifiers are deep in Tiger/Turtle country. Elbow Block/Bloodlust plus a wild frenzy of offensive attacks is usually all I need against a Berserker. It's against blockers that I wish I had more than 2 modifiers, but against them I need all 4 of the Smasher innate buffs.
3.1 Elbow Block with Smasher is extremely effective against blockers. The tradeoffs against berserkers are more complicated, but the bottom line is that the penalties for a berserker defense make it a really bad deal unless your health advantage is enormous, or your enemy is incapable of damaging you much on offense, and also incapable of mitigating your damage much of defense. 60% reflected damage sounds awesome until you realize you're taking 160%, and may as well have done nothing except that this shortens the fight. If you have 99 strength like one of the end bosses, that's great, but most enemies have at least 50% as much health as you at the beginning of a fight, and high level opponents will always have a noteworthy plan of attack. The math just doesn't work unless they're badly wounded, although berserking defenses are great for finishing off wounded opponents and preventing a comeback.
Very simply, Elbow Block is cheap and it prevents a huge amount of damage without any real penalties against myself. It takes like 3 energy when I have 31 strength, and costs the enemy extra energy - yes, taking away their ammunition. Bears need energy. So I go nuts on offense, block everything I can, and take more reflected than actual damage, ultimately creating the wide difference in health I need to mke berserking work.
Berserkers usually lose to opponents who are in any way well-prepared for them. Bears with blocking who debuff enemy defenses where applicable do way better, since berserking is a break-even proposition while normal defenses actually prevent damage with nothing required in return except a small amount of energy.