Berserker with sword & board

[Mati]

Hi! did someone try make Berkserker with one handed weapon and a shield? How its look like? is it really easier to stay alive? could you make decent dps?

[igortroy]

I like dual-claws-glass-cannon Berserker better (more pure fun), but a shield increases survivability greatly. especially alongside good Dex which gives you good evasion.
it does however slow down the otherwise fast Berserker game pace, and don't expect to beat sword&board Engineers in the "tank" department.

what I did with my Berserker is 1st weapon set dual claws (one Legendary with life steal and -% to all armor on hit), and 2nd sword&board with a high crit chance sword. first set is used 90% of the time. second set for big mobs (like Trolls) and hard-hitting melee bosses. dps is roughly half as good, but at least I don't get 1-shot.

[dakine]

Yes, plenty of people have sword and board berserkers. It looks like... a berserker with a sword and board! It's much easier to stay alive especially in elite, and depending on the build you choose you can make great dps. I'm using a build that focuses primarily and northern rage for AoE and raze for single target. I have no problems destroying rooms whatsoever.

And to the comment about not beating engineers, its peprsonal preference. If equally geared the berserker will kill off giant mobs like the troll faster and take less damage in the end. But as far as random burst goes ill probably give it up to the tankgineer. (I have a high level tankgineer and a 30ish hc tank berserker)

[Ramp[GER]]

Im at the end of my first playthrough with a Lvl 46 Sword & board Berserker. Because of its my first serious char Im playing only on Normal Difficulty. I tried to make a tank-like Char and it works almost too good on Normal, my Berserker is almost invincible. I use a fast weapon for additional Health-on-Hit bonuses. As a result I almost can not die on normal. In the whole game I used only around 10 health Potions. Most fights with Champion and boss monsters are like this: Left click on the big monster, hold down left mouse button, lean back and wait until monster dies, release left mouse Button. Done. Its really effective, but a bit boring, too. Of course in terms of Damage, I cant make too much (not even with Skills, because i specialized on defensive passive Skills). My friend is playing embermage at the same Lvl and does up to 3 times more damage than me sometimes. But this is not really a problem if your enemey cant hurt you. (At least at this Level and difficulty, Im sure this would not work on a Lvl 60 NG+ Veteran or higher Scenario)

[igortroy]

in case evasion stacks with chance to block, a sword&board Berserker or Engineer can have over 90% chance of not being hit on higher levels.
on Normal or Casual it'll make you invincible even in NG+.
Veteran difficulty mobs have higher damage, so the 10% that will hit - will hurt. a lot.
Elite have even higher damage + greater chance of a critical hit, so expect getting 1-shot.

I used to have a hacked char with over 1000 base stats, 10k HP, insane armor AND 50% chance to block, just to test out Elite - and some regular mobs still killed me pretty easily.

[Matthew]

Just use skills not tied directly to weapon damage, and the damage loss isn't a problem. I find that all classes end up relying heavily upon skills later in the game, and if you rely on skills which don't use weapon damage (or small amounts of it), then it doesn't matter what you hold in your hands. If survivability is an issue, then run with a shield.

My Permafrost/Shadow Ally druid uses a staff, but doesn't swing it much. Could easily equip a shield with little to no DPS loss.