How to use Berserker mastery?

[Lirio Fantasma]

I have more than 2000 hours on the game, so it's a little shaming to ask for it, but I am not sure of the Berserker mastery is similar enough to the previous ones, so I'd like to share my hypothesis and see if community agrees or not. (Please, no hate, I'm enjoying the DLC).

My observations with a test character appear to said:

1. Transformations demand nearly as much skillpoints as pets for being effective enough.
-> So, the build must be specialized on them.

2. Transformations are, technically, just a "mode" for the character that gives you two exclusive skills, but their true nature as power ups is only complete when you support them with the Form of the Beast passive skill, which is Lv50 in mastery development.
-> So, it must be your primary skill tree if you want to make a shapeshifting character, and you should max it before choosing the second one.

3. Onslaught bonus is only useful for cooldown skills.
-> So, it's for charging Leap, an item skill, or a second mastery attack, whick makes it great but specially for hybrid classes; but as it is so specialized, and not applies to transformations, it's more or less fair to said Berserker is actually two tiny masteries: the semi-historical berserker warrior + the shapeshifter; similar to the elemental mage + chaos/aether mage of the arcanist mastery. That would imply that a "pure" berserker is actually, for playability, an hybrid character with human mode vs beast mode, but as onslaught only strenghten one attack on the tree, you only have one or two "attack slots" from the secondary mastery for take advantage of its bonuses.

4. While Werewolf form includes part of your weapon damage but Wereraven doesn't, werewolf is a combat bonus while wereraven is actually a spell.
-> So, that demands TWO specialized builds: physique+cunning for werewolf, vs physique+spirit for wereraven. Excellent for characters specialized on one of them, but it doesn't favor the shapeshifter concept if you want both transformations on the same character unless you decide to develop the three attributes in the same proportion, forcing yourself to be mediocre unless you really know what your are doing.

5. Winds of Asterkarn is excellent, I love its concept and the feeling of being channeling the nature power around me, but it requires you to remain centered on the casting while enemies attack you, and if they interrupt you, you must start again; it gets a little dangerous with the new sunder mechanic.
-> So, this is not a normal mage skill, but a caster battlemage skill; ergo, arcanist is not necessarily your best bet for it; in my opinion, a retaliation resilient build with the soldier or shielded oathkeeper mastery would be better, unless you have enough friends to cover you while casting: other players, immortal "pets" like Nemesis or the Wind Devils, or a zoo build with the Nature's Guardians perk from the Ishtak constellation. Fascinating.

6. All the previous observations suggest that Berserker is the most skillpoint and planning demanding mastery of the game,


Again: NO HATE. I'm just trying to understand the new mastery, as it looks more complex than it looked at first sight, but I like it anyways.

Just in case, Wow, Crate, you did it again; it's impressive how much you can do just with a single mastery. XD

That's all. I'd be grateful if you give me suggestions of how to build characters using this mastery, or corrected me if I'm wrong on something.

Good luck.

[suejak]

Wereforms are 2 skills for one skillpoint, which can be good for devotion procs. No inherent reason you need to specialize if you're more interested in the devotion aspect.

[Lirio Fantasma]

Originally posted by suejak:

Wereforms are 2 skills for one skillpoint, which can be good for devotion procs. No inherent reason you need to specialize if you're more interested in the devotion aspect.

Thank you. Interesting. :)

[Goreion]

I have only done a thane (Soldier+Zerk) so far, but he's taken down 3 uber bosses on ascended and it has been a wild ride so far.

I absolutely loved leveling him and running him as WW and yeah, I agree with what you say about form of the beast. But my FAVORITE part about that is it does not count as a Exclusive Skill. So i went all the way in soldier to Oleron's rage and all the way to Form of the beast. Now things get interesting

With the right gear you can get all the great parts of Soldier OA/DA buffs, and the serious attack speed from Zerk bonuses. (I am at 240% right now but cant push past it as don't have enough points/cant sacrifice my sustain) but it gets insane.

But I was thinking more along the lines of using Form of the Beast and Wereraven next time, to benefit from the spell speed bonuses but completely not use ice talons or the other ability. Just 1 point into Were Raven to start and the rest to over buffs Spell Speed and pick something like maybe Dreegs evil eye build with conversion or what not. See if I can push spell casting well past 230%+

I have yet to play around seriously with Onslaught stacks, as I cant really use them but plan on checking it out eventually.

But my favorite, hands down ability in zerk tree is Leap. With the right setup, you can chain it non stop. And if I had a build that buffed it, and maybe pushed it so high and converted it to just stomp stuff. That could be fun. Lota options I think got opened up with Zerk Tree.

[TheMasterBlaster]

OP

1. Totally depends on the build. My berserker werewolf build is about as balanced as my other builds regarding the spread of skill points between my two masteries.

2. NOT AT ALL. In fact, I only have 1 point Form of the Beast with a handful points from my gear. IMHO, it is an underwhelming ultimate skill compared to most other classes.

3. I haven't tried Onslaught skill build. But there are items that give Onslaught stacks to Feral Claws, which I assume would trigger when using Rip & Tear.

4. Heavily investing skill points into both Werewolf and Wereraven is terrible because there isn't any gear that supports both forms, other than generic 'Berserker' class bonuses on some items. Not to mention, the damage types would be all over the place. Seems like you're making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

5. Haven't tried it, but I assume it's not much different than most other channeling builds.

[Lirio Fantasma]

Originally posted by Goreion:

[...]...Lota options I think got opened up with Zerk Tree.

Wow, thank you, nice ideas.

Originally posted by TheMasterBlaster:

OP [...]
3. I haven't tried Onslaught skill build. But there are items that give Onslaught stacks to Feral Claws, which I assume would trigger when using Rip & Tear.

4. Heavily investing skill points into both Werewolf and Wereraven is terrible because there isn't any gear that supports both forms, other than generic 'Berserker' class bonuses on some items. Not to mention, the damage types would be all over the place. Seems like you're making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

[...].

Hmmm... superinteresting. Maybe you are right: I will take it into account when planning; as I supposed, maybe it's better to make a character with a single transformation as their powerup, at least for now. Thanks for the other suggestions too.

[Lanka]

There are weapons that give Onslaught stack with Claws. Two of those and you get up to 6 stacks that is 90%? extra damage to next attack with cooldown. Rip, the Werewolf rush works. As does spells from other masteries. Like I have Berserker+Occultist mystic and the Sigil of Consumption deals pretty good damage with Onslaught buff. Enough to clear trash mobs around my wolf so I can concentrate scratching the boss' shins. Death by thousand papercut style facetanking chaos-wolf.

[Lirio Fantasma]

Originally posted by Lanka:

There are weapons that give Onslaught stack with Claws. Two of those and you get up to 6 stacks that is 90%? extra damage to next attack with cooldown. Rip, the Werewolf rush works. As does spells from other masteries. Like I have Berserker+Occultist mystic and the Sigil of Consumption deals pretty good damage with Onslaught buff. Enough to clear trash mobs around my wolf so I can concentrate scratching the boss' shins. Death by thousand papercut style facetanking chaos-wolf.

Uh, excellent. looks like chaos werewolf really rocks... probably I will make one too. Thanks!

[Cptn_Miller]

dont use wolf/raven, onslaught and the default attacks are great

add in soldier or oathkeeper and its a super tank

[HellSlayer]

winds is basically less damage arcanist skill.. I dont see what makes beserker great... raven is mid, werewolf is ugly rat looking creature without tail and onslaught is situational.

[★Brosef]

If Form of the Beast had +atk/cast spd I can justify getting it but it just requires wayy too many points if you already got the exlusive from your other class.

[SchnitzelTruck]

Berserker is easymode. It combos well with every other mastery and playstyle.

[^7ja^1co]

5. I didn't realize how many interrupt attacks there are until I tried that build xD

[Edward Von Worms]

my pure cold damage wereraven is going pretty well, Nemesis has been a huge help near the end of elite so i'm starting to practice with the movement skills more disengage and dodge i know those one shots are coming, got one question if anyone can answer, how do you raise the armour absorbtion stats?

[Safarel]

1. Yes
2. Not nessessary
3. Onslaught is for improving already powerful abilities from other masterys, such as doombolt
4. Wolf could be heavy caster, raven could be melee, build depends
5. Wind deals pitify damage, and lock you at place, not good skill for ascendant
6. Not at all

[Rudo]

1. transformations are actually quite talent point efficient id argue, as you do get two skills at the price of one. there are also exceptions where you can use the form just as a buffer (ie. ravens everwinter or many items in the game that grant your form universal buff/conversion) rather than invest to the form or its skills themsleves

2. lots of people seem to be misreading form of the beast. it increases your maximum attack/casting speed cap, it does not increase your current ones unless youre beyond the cap. thus its not really worth investing deeply into unless you can reach such attack/casting speeds

3. onslaught is intended primarily to combo with other classes. although you can do it fine with leap too, the game is built and balanced around hybridization rather than just doing single class builds so its not uncommon occurence.

as side note, you can actually use onslaught for shapeshifting but it is very awkward; you use onslaught to get stacks, shift into your form and use their secondary skill that does have CD to spend stacks, shift out. rinse and repeat

4. it is more intended for single form focus rather than actively shapeshifting, although i suppose you could do chaos conversion for both and scale them same time like that? it would require very heavy talent point investment for very little or no benefit really though

5. havent used winds of asterkarn myself but i believe that you would want to stack disruption resist for it, which it doesnt innately have strangely enough. its also quite curious that arcanist tree itself doesnt provide such resistance either while being ''the caster''

6. lastly i dont think it requires too much planning unless youre going for onslaught build, there i seem to be rather struggling for talent points as reaver, where with werewolf and raven builds i felt i have plenty of extra talent points to spend