Berserker Guide ver. 1.2

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Berserker went through some pretty heavy changes in 1.2, making some of the stuff in the old Berserker guide no longer applicable, so having run the new berserker and liking it a fair bit better than the old version, I decided to put this guide together. Thanks go to Torokasi for making the old one.

Disclaimer: I don't pretend to have anywhere close to perfect knowledge of the game, as such I expect and welcome constructive criticisms and additions.

To do: AM probably, other global categories probably.

Race Selection:

Cornac: The main draws are the extra category point and faster levelling, neither of which are terribly important unless you're looking to go pal around with the Zigurites. It's not a particularly bad choice, but not a stellar one either.

Higher: Has arguably less to offer than Cornac does here, though one could get milage out of both the regen and Highborn's Bloom.

Shalore: The start isn't the greatest thing in the world, but imagine if you will Timeless in conjunction with Unstoppable. The crit booster and Dex-scaling haste are both good as well, making this a very good choice.

Thalore: Hard to argue with +6.5% allres, and even if you don't build willpower you can get some milage out of the first skill. Extra saves are icing.

Halfling: Berserkers like the extra crit from Luck of the Little Folk and the other talents are something at least, as is 12 HP. It's worth a look, even if they don't necessarily grab you like elfzerkers do.

Dwarf: 12 HP here as well, and Power is Money and the armor booster can be handy.

Skeleton: Levels slow as mossasses and doesn't get infusions, which is something of a blow. If you can get past that though the racials give you a fair amount to like.

Ghoul: Slow on a melee class is something I'm not a fan of, but on the other hand that is a tremendous amount of HP. It can work, just don't complain to me if you find the speed awful.

Yeek: Well berserker lifemod cancels out yeek HP plot! Global speed bonus and confuse res are of course nice, have fun getting one going though.

Stat Distribution:
Strength: Unless you're doing something incredibly weird this is your unquestionable primary stat.
Dexterity: Impacts the accuracy boost from Berserker Rage and boosts Precise Strikes, so it's not a bad idea to consider maxing.
Constitution: You all know the deal, 59 post-equipment for Thick Skin Lv5. Beyond that, you have +3 lifemod and Unstoppable, you'll live if you don't max this, but having more is nice for Vitality/Unflinching Resolve/Relentless Fury.
Magic: No.
Willpower: Extra stamina is nice, as is mindpower for the AM crowd, but your priorities are likely calling you elsewhere.
Cunning: Can wait but should probably get some level of investment. You don't really multi-hit and you don't have GWF, so you're looking for extra crit if nothing else.

Class Talents:

Technique/Two-handed Assault (unlocked, 1.3):
Stunning Blow (8 Sta, 6 CD): Your bread-and-butter stun skill. Lv3 in it gives you six turns of stun so that's more or less all you need if you care about duration. If you don't, there's not much reason to invest past the first point.
Fearless Cleave (16 Sta, no CD): Serves as a low-grade distance closer with a bit of crowd control baked in, which is nice since you're not as mobile as your sword-and-board cousin the bulwark. Damage kind of sucks if you don't move though and the scaling isn't brilliant.
Death Dance (30 Sta, 10 CD): Functions largely as it used to with the addition of causing bleeding over five turns at Lv3, giving it some synergy with Bloody Butcher. Getting it up to Lv3 can wait until you get that skill, though.
Execution (25 Sta, 8 CD): Auto-crit skill that deals extra damage the lower the target is on life. Also levelling it up doesn't cause a massive stamina drain. Not a bad button thanks to the auto-crit.

Technique/Berserker's Strength (unlocked, 1.3):
Warshout (30 Sta, 18 CD): Mass confuse! Gets pretty big if you level it up, not really a whole lot to say about it other than it's an effective skill.
Berserker Rage (20 Sta sustain, 10 CD): The old Berserker skill, with the defense/armor penalty replaced with 2% mHP/turn loss when an enemy is in sight and a crit boost based on how much life you're missing. A bit pyschologically unappealing in my opinion but so long as you can keep it from handing you embarrasing deaths it's a very helpful skill. It's also instant, so you can just turn it off when you don't want it killing you. Should be considered something of a priority.
Shattering Blow (12 Sta, 13-8 CD): Multiplier is kind of crappy and neither armor nor saves should be a large concern for you. Being able to break damage shields is nice though and it *is* another button, and it's on the way to...
Relentless Fury (25 CD): This skill. So this is kind of like Second Wind except it's only useable when you're low on stamina and it gives you stamina over a bunch of turns instead of all at once but it also boosts your attack speed while it's doing that. So it's not really like Second Wind but still worth a look since it's pretty easy for you to get low on stamina.

Technique/Combat Techniques (unlocked, 1.3):
Rush (22 Sta, 34-18 CD): Rush at 1.3 mastery, Lv4 gets you 10 range so you can leave it there unless you want to shave a couple turns off the cooldown.
Precise Strikes (30 Sta sustain, 30 CD): If you can live with the penalty to attack speed (or make up for it somehow), the boost to accuracy and particularly crit rate is helpful. Can wait until you get enough Dex for it to be worth it, but consider 5ing this.
Perfect Strike (10 Sta, 25 CD): Unless you desperately need a way around invisibility, you don't really need to use this. Put a point into it to get Blinding Speed and move on.
Blinding Speed (25 Sta, 55 CD): Five-turn haste is nice. Certainly worth coming here for if you've the points to spare.

Technique/Combat Veteran (unlocked, 1.3):
Quick Recovery (passive): Stamina management aid, level of investment to taste.
Fast Metabolism (passive): Not great on scaling, but it can help a bit. Level of investment to taste.
Spell Shield (passive): Means of trying to keep Impending Doom/Curse of Death off, level of investment to taste.
Unending Frenzy (passive): No.

Technique/Bloodthirst (locked, Lv10+, 1.2):
Mortal Terror (passive): Have a free critboost! Also dazing on big hits is nice. Can wait a bit but 5 it.
Bloodbath (passive): Stacking health/stamina regen on crits is pretty great for you. Max HP buff is pretty nice as well. 5 it when you get a sufficiently good crit rate going.
Bloody Butcher (passive): No strings attached physpower boost is kind of overkill, but it also reduces physical resistance on bleeding enemies, which should keep you interested.
Unstoppable (120 Sta, 45 CD): Some day someone should figure out what the best talent in the game is. Seven turns of not dying with a potentially full heal at the end of it is well and truly worth the price of entry and maxing this should be a priority.

Technique/Warcries (locked, Lv10+, 1.3):
Shattering Shout (20 Sta, 7 CD): Good area and reasonable CD. Damage scales decently though not wonderfully with Str, and destroys projectiles at Lv5. At least consider it if you're here.
Second Wind (50 CD): Restores a good percentage of your stamina, which is pretty nice for managing it.
Battle Shout (40 Sta, 30 CD): Mostly serves as a weaker healing/shielding thing if you've been stacking healmod. Doesn't really scale well, so if you care it's not really worth more than a point.
Battle Cry (40 Sta, 30 CD): Yeah lowering enemy defense really isn't worth this. You have good accuracy thanks to Berserker Rage (and Precise Strikes if you're using that). You're going to hit, on average. It does kill evasion/concealment bonuses, however, so if you're looking for a way around that...

Technique/Superiority (locked, Lv10+, 1.3):
Juggernaut (50 Sta, 40 CD): Unlike Bulwarks, your armor isn't likely to be particularly huge, so you can certainly get some milage out of this. Getting hit with crits less is also nice.
Onslaught (10 Sta sustain, 10 CD): I don't really understand the point of this talent. Knockback is questionable for melee-based characters and this has a per-turn stamina drain attached, but at least the costs are something of a joke now and the first level can work with Fearless Cleave.
Battle Call (30 Sta, 10 CD): Getting jerkholes into your face so you can kill them is pretty nice, though. Particularly for a Death Dance.
Shattering Impact (40 Sta sustain, 30 CD): Adding some area damage to your bumps/single target skills is certainly nice considering berserker weapon damage, even if it's not as great for you as it used to be.

Technique/Shield Defense (locked, 0.9):
Who on earth would play a Berserker like a Bulwark?

Technique/Archery Training (locked, 1.1):
9 range berserkers. (Does Berserker Rage even work with a bow?)

Cunning/Dirty Fighting (locked, 1.0):
Cripple is great, and against the stun vulnerable the tree can otherwise serve, but you should ask yourself if it's worth the category point.

Generic Talents:
Technique/Combat Training (unlocked, 1.3):
Thick Skin (passive): It's Thick Skin, it gets 5'd eventually by 99% of everyone I'm sure.
Armor Training (passive): Armor is only as good as how much Armor Hardiness lets it cover, but armor isn't something you're incredible at so if you're tight on generics you can make do with 3 or even leaving it at 1.
Combat Accuracy (passive): You can pretty easily get enough accuracy to make do with only a couple of points here. You *can* 5 it for overkill accuracy bonuses if you want but do everything else you need to do first.
Weapons Mastery (passive): Chances are you're using a conventional two-hander, so yeah.
Dagger Mastery (passive): No.

Technique/Conditioning (unlocked, 1.3):
Vitality (passive): Cut poison/disease duration by potentially more than half and heal a portion of your maximum life over time when knocked below 50%? Okay sure.
Unflinching Resolve (passive): Con-scaling chance to shrug off a grab bag of potentially unpleasant status? Sign me up. Lv4 at 1.3 mastery gets you everything on the list, I believe, so the only reason to 5 it is for the extra 3% or so chance.
Daunting Prescence (20 Sta sustain, 8 CD): Eh. Doesn't scale as well as you'd like all things considered, and since it's not required for Unflinching Resolve anymore you can ignore it completely.
Adrenaline Surge (24 CD): It's there if you want it, but you can probably make do without.

Cunning/Survival (unlocked, 1.0):
Heightened Senses (passive): Stick a point here and move on if you care about either of the next two here. If you don't, ignore it.
Charms Mastery (passive): Nice to grab and max eventually, but only that.
Piercing Sight (passive): Spotting invisible jerkholes more easily is nice, but again, it's only that.
Evasion (30 CD): Not particularly careworthy in my opinion, but you can put some spare points here if you want.

Technique/Field Control (locked, 1.0):
Track and Slow Motion aren't bad, but unless you're desperate they're not worth spending a category point over

Prodigies:

This is mainly stuff I feel like commenting on, not necessarily what's good, so don't worry if something's left out or if something is here.

Flexible Combat: You have the stats to make good use of the extra punches, so you may as well go for it.
I Can Carry the World!: Likely not as much extra damage as Flexible Combat on average, but you certainly can take both.
Legacy of the Naloren: Mostly mentioning this because I'm not sure how the trident holds up to other options these days, not really having ever taken it, but I hear it's pretty good. Also according to grobblewobble, the prodigy adds five levels to Exotic Weapon Mastery as opposed to setting it to 5, so if you can grab levels from escorts (or even just one and level it from there)...
Irresistable Sun: If you're patient enough to beat up on a training dummy with a fire/light damage weapon, then getting dudes in close is pretty welcome.
Superpower: Extra mindpower based off strength and extra damage based of willpower. Non-zigurites need not apply.
Windblade: Grab a couple of daggers and ram into a training dummy for a minute or two. Now enjoy your radius 4 320% weapon attack running off of berserker weapon damage, citizen. Thanks to thomas for pointing this out. EDIT: Jurriann points out that using the training dummy to get this doesn't work as of 1.2.4
Never Stop Running: Can get you to where you need to be and the stamina cost is something you can manage.
Draconic Will: Great in conjunction with Timeless, and other races can make use of it as well.

[Davion Fuxa]

Great guide to get a player knowing more about the Berserker class since the new update, though I think a little bit constrained somewhat in suggestions so here's some input for your guide.

The other guide made note of several prodigies you should probably consider noting here. I won't go through his list, but I can vouch that Draconic Body for example is and awesome prodigy for a Berserker to have since they have a lot of health and get 40% of that back when they get dropped below 30%; or if you just happened to get damage a whole lot at once it might potentially save you from dying. Eye of the Tiger was also a talent I took when playing Berserker which one might argue as being somewhat lacking since most of that reduction in cooldown would hit high cooldown talents like Unstoppable or Blinding Speed; but I enjoyed it's use then and I can only imagine how much more useful it will be with the additional talents one gets access to now with Berserkers.

You should note that increasing your characters Constitution has it's use with the Conditioning tree - every Talent but Daunting Presence scales with an increased Constitution stat. That's one way to effectively help handle status effects - specifically Slow, Confusion, or Blindless since Berserker Rage doesn't help you with those specific debuffs. This is a nice consideration as opposed to Dexterity since Berserkers are one of the few classes that can make Constitution work, and work well.

Dirty Fighting was a category I unlocked with my last category point on my Shaloran Berseker, and I don't regret unlocking that category one bit. Primarily one of the key things I liked here was that Backstab upped your critical hit chance on stunned opponents - which you should have a very easy time doing with Stunning Blow, Dirty Fighting, and Backstab keeping enemies perma-stunned. Switch Place is also good as a one point wonder if you want to reposition yourself - perhaps on the side WITH the staircase that the particular enemy is directly in front of. Cripple is icing on the cake.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Fair enough points on Con/the conditioning tree and Dirty Fighting, Vitality was a bit different when I ran the character and I hadn't realized it had been altered from when it capped at 100/turn, and while the scaling on Unflinching Resolve isn't large enough for whether or not you leave it at 40 base to make or break you more is always nice to have there. A more complete breakdown of Dirty Fighting is something I should've included if only to avoid the implication of it being a gimmick choice for Berserkers as well.

As for prodigies... well my general philosophy for them on Normal is pick two that look appealing and see how they work out. My tendency is to comment on some of them and leave the most self-explanatory ones (like Draconic Body) out not because I think they're bad or anything, but largely because there's basically nothing I can say about them, but you're right in that I could stand to add more.

[The Revanchist]

That one line...

Magic: No

The utter lack of... Anything.

As for the guide itself, I don't usually (read: for more than about eleven levels) play Berserkers, but it looks well-made.

[duskhorizon]

It's really good guide but missing most crucial parts : levelling guide (what do you want to invest on what level, how to distribute starts/talents as you level up), what kind of gear you want to invest and what infusions you want on what levels. Without it its just description of skills.

Would you mind to add some leveling up suggestions you have? At least in a form that old torokasi guide had?

[Davion Fuxa]

I'm not sure a quick leveling guide is really needed, as Berserker talents are very straightforward - even more so then before.

[duskhorizon]

Well... for experienced player like you Davion I'm sure thy are. No for noobs like me tho.

I Usually max my Stunning Blow, Rush, Warshout, Berserker's Rage, Mortal Terror, Bloodbath ... and then i don't really know what should I do.

I don't know what infusions/runes combination i should use. And what bother me most (and it's almost never covered in guides) how i should divide my generics between racial ones and the others.

[Davion Fuxa]

Refer to bpat's General Inscription Guide if you don't know what inscriptions you think you should take - it's a little out of date (Movement Infusions for example aren't as good as they once were, Healing Infusions are much better, and then we have the new Biting Gale Rune) but it should give you a general idea of what to do.

If you are personally looking for an idea of what inscriptions to load up on now - Maybe go Movement Infusion x1, Heroism Infusion x1, Wild x1 (Physical/Mental or Physical/Magically preferable, just Physical if nothing else), Healing Infusion or Regeneration Infusion x1 (either or is good), and then one more Inscription of your choice that you might think could be useful. For the last inscription: Sun Infusion might be useful early game, Teleportation has it's use mid game onward, the new Biting Gale might be worth a spin, or you just might work with a 2nd inscription from the 4 I mentioned previously.

More or less regarding talents, it really isn't a matter of experience anymore. There are no real filler talents to speak of that a newbie might screw up in investing in (Sunder Weapon and Sunder Armor are gone) and outside of Berserker Rage and when to/when to not use it you pretty well can't go wrong investing in whatever fancies your whim - outside of Unstoppable, which he has already stated quite plainly with 'maxing this should be a priority' next to it.

There is a reason I stated that the revised Berserker class has newbie friendly potential for easing a player with no experience into the game; the general overall usefulness and potentially to put points wherever you feel make this an excellent class.

[grobblewobble]

Draconic will is worth mentioning for Shalore berserkers. When a shalore can apply timeless to both Unstoppable and Draconic Will, that basically means you're invincible.

About Legacy of the Naloren: you might want to add to your guide that you should pick up Exotic Weapon mastery from a warrior escort and max it before getting the prodigy in this case. The prodigy adds another five skill levels, so you can end up at skill level 10. You could cheese points out of weapon mastery if you keep them floating.

I Usually max my Stunning Blow, Rush, Warshout, Berserker's Rage, Mortal Terror, Bloodbath ... and then i don't really know what should I do.

It's usually better to get started on as many good skills as possible instead of maxing a small number of skills early.

You should definitely get at least one point (and consider more) in fearless cleave, death dance and bloody butcher before maxing all of the skills above. I also recommend putting one point into Quick Recovery and one point into Fast Metabolism early on. These let you regenerate your recources much faster and easier. Further points into the regen talents get progressively less interesting, though.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Re: talent guide, while it wouldn't be much trouble to throw up a quick and dirty one for the first twenty levels or so, as mentioned there's not much need to make one for Berserkers. So long as you unlock Bloodthirst at Lv10 and max out Unstoppable before Lv30 or so you're pretty much golden. There are a few other places I mention are key (Rush 4, Unflinching Resolve 4, ect.) but all in all the new Berserker is pretty hard to screw up so I feel it can get away with a more minimalistic approach in that area.

Re: Legacy of the Naloren, well that's an amusing and quite likely unintentional feature. Yes. Let's call that a feature . I'll add that in, sure.

[grobblewobble]

so if you can grab levels from escorts...

For the sake of clarity: you only need one level from an escort. From there you can increase it with generic talent points up to five.

[Zanatar]

Cornac: Would you give me permission, to post this Berserker guide over on the Steam forum for Tales of Maj'eyal? They have a guide for berserker there, but it is outdated for version 1.1.5. Would be nice to yours there. I would for certain give you full credit as the author. I'd be just the poster.. It`s your guide and I'll post your name on it.

Or if you can yourself post it over there.. Either way. They would benefit from having your guide there.

In addition.. I`m new.. and this will in fact be the first class I`m going to try playing.. I know for myself, I will for sure benefit greatly form a leveling guide. As leek put it.. it`s straightforward to the vets here.. but as a new player.. it`s all very confusing and daunting.

It would be great if you could add a level guide up to a point anyway.

Thanks ,
Zanatar.

[yukuai]

As a newbie of this game, and playing only berserker, I find that the most important thing are runes/infusions:
- Regeneration: very usefull, a must have
- Heroism/Shielding/Wild: damage mitigation or shield it's a very good thing. I see that with the shield you can easly win alot of fights: if you're in danger you can shield yourself and then activate the Regeneration (the round used to activate the regeneration is protected by the shield)
- Movement/Phase door: escape, not-so-safe version
- Teleport: escape, safe-version


Atm I'm level 29 and I'm using Regeneration, Shielding, Phase door and teleport: even if I reach 100- hp I can teleport and regen quickly

[Kwibus]

Teleport isnt 100% safe. It can teleport you in to THE middle of a room full of enemies.

[cctobias]

As a newbie of this game, and playing only berserker, I find that the most important thing are runes/infusions:
- Regeneration: very usefull, a must have
- Heroism/Shielding/Wild: damage mitigation or shield it's a very good thing. I see that with the shield you can easly win alot of fights: if you're in danger you can shield yourself and then activate the Regeneration (the round used to activate the regeneration is protected by the shield)
- Movement/Phase door: escape, not-so-safe version
- Teleport: escape, safe-version


Atm I'm level 29 and I'm using Regeneration, Shielding, Phase door and teleport: even if I reach 100- hp I can teleport and regen quickly

You are, IMO, on the right track that the first thing a newbie should really concentrate on are inscriptions. Its not entirely the most important thing but they are a huge difference maker and also important for learning the game. But let me say some things about inscriptions that may not be obvious.

- As kwibus mentioned teleport is not safe. It 's a fairly serious gamble. Teleport is important, although not always necessary. Its especially good against a large mob or a bad zone in or a boss/rare that is very fast moving. But you WILL eventually teleport into a room full of enemies at some point. Also there are controlled phase door runes, many builds may find that better than a teleport, although in sandworm lair teleport is nice to have, also there are torques of pyschoportation for an identical non-magical effect that can let you use the slot for something else

- Movement is FAR stronger than people originally realize because it confers 4-6 turns of COMPLETE IMMUNITY to stuns/dazes/pins. This means you can acutally substite a movement for a wild infusion:physical to some extent

- The various attack runes also remove conditions. This is not always obvious.

- You really really, as a newbie, need to pay attention to what type of effects each condition is and you really want Wild infusion to counter these. Being stunned or dazed is a HUGE damage debuff is has to come off or be prevented. When I first started playing I just assumed ice block freeze was magical and the kor'pul boss kept owning me and it all seemed really dumb. Another example is that Hexes (from corruptors) are mental conditions, this makes no sense to me but that is the way it is, yet corruptor diseases are magical and not physical. So you really need to mouse over various conditions get familiar to what is what.

- One thing newbies may not realize is that you can have 2 of each type of infusion, but not more than that.

-Finally be very aware of which infusions are instant and also what similar talents are instant and are not. For example Heal is instant and Regeneration takes a turn. Shield rune is instant but Light/barrier takes a turn while temporal/Time shield is instant. This can be very important if you have low life and can't risk the turn it would take. Also Wild infusions are instant and sometimes are usable when other abilities are not (such as if you are silenced)


I am surprised you are not using 2 Wild infusions at level 29 with 4 inscription slots. I think most people would. Also I would say that movement is far superior to phase door rune for various reasons and you should substitute those. Movement infusion can get to over 1200% move speed and they work in no teleport areas, that alone makes them better. But the immunity puts them at far superior.