ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Just some thoughts on a way to add some spice to the somewhat dull Berserker class. Since it doesn’t play well with the standard antimagic approach that many use for Berserker, it should add some variety to how the class is played.

Unlock: Side with the Grand Corrupter and defeat Myssil as a Berserker. The expected way to make this happen is to pay for staff skill in Angolwen.

Core concept: Staff-wielding Berserker that uses Strength and Magic.

Core Mechanics: Adds 60% of Strength to staff attacks and unlocks one of four separate special skill trees. Others can be unlocked with generics.

Option #1: Winter (@1.2, Mag)
-1. Icy Chill, sustain, decreases movement speed of enemies, generates mana when dealing cold damage.
-2. Snowpoint. Active, converts staff melee damage to cold, pierces cold resist. Reduces fire damage dealt by character by 90%. Lasts until used again or another conversion is used.
-3. Ice Fog. Mana spell. Deals unimpressive cold damage in large AoE centered on Shaman. Anything in the fog takes 75% less damage from attacks more than 3 spaces away.
-4. Icicle Spray. Mana spell. Throws a fan of icicles similar to throwing knives, but uses equipped weapon stats.

Option #2: Spring (@1.2, Magic)
-1. Sunrise. Spell, generates light resource and mana, removes all dark resource and blindness.
-2. Solar Glaive. Active, converts staff melee damage to light, pierces light resist. Reduces dark damage dealt by character. Lasts until used again or another conversion is used.
-3. Invigorating Hope. Active, spell, purges status ailments (1/rank) at random.
-4. Rebirth. Sustain, spell, while active constantly drains light. If character dies while active, deals massive light damage and is returned to life at full health.

Option #3: Summer (@1.2, Magic)
-1. Dancing Flames. Sustain, spell. While active, your movement speed and the movement speed of all enemies is substantially increased. Generates mana when fire damage is dealt.
-2. Fiery Partisan. Active, converts staff melee damage to fire, pierces fire resist. Reduces cold damage dealt by character. Lasts until used again or another conversion is used.
-3. Heat Wave. Deals fire damage in a large area around the Shaman that potentially dazes enemies.
-4. Burning Leap. Active, deals fire damage in a line and moves to the end of that line.

Option #4: Autumn (@1.2, Magic)
-1. Reaping Harvest. Passive. Whenever an enemies dies within a radius of two, gain a temporary harvesting stack. For each stack, gain life and mana leech on staff attacks.
-2. Moon Scythe. Active, converts staff melee damage to dark, pierces dark resist. Reduces light damage dealt by character. Lasts until used again or another conversion is used.
-3. Celebration of the Harvest. Active. Refills every 50 kills. When activated, fully heals and restores all resources.
-4. Accept Fate. Passive. Enemies within your reaping harvest radius have reduced healing.

This is really cool. Not much of a Berserker Player, but i've been wanting to play 2h Staff in Melee for a while.

Sunpa and arcane blade both can manage that well enough as-is, for what it's worth. It doesn't really use the staff as much beyond a proc boosting 2h weapon + spell casting bonus, but it does a'ight.

If you want proper staff-centric melee classes but don't want to wait for something to show up in the base game, there's a handful of add-ons that try to implement one, for what it's worth. I... can't actually remember what any of them are called right at this moment, but they definitely exist

Doctornull’s class pack includes a couple of staff melee characters. I liked most of the classes in that addon, but enabling enemies to get the custom classes resulted in some failure to load levels and corrupted runs.

I approve of a Zerker class evolution either way. It definitely feels like it could use something to shake it up a bit. However I also feel that if you're going to have one evolution as a payoff for Anti-Antimagic, there should be one for doing the opposite and taking the Antimagic path. Even if it's for another class, like for example... a mindstar-centered Rogue?