Author Topic: Flurry of Steel and Fire - The Berserker  (Read 8322 times)

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Offline Firebrand

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Flurry of Steel and Fire - The Berserker
« on: 30 March 2018, 21:20:50 »
Alright, I'm back with yet one more of these threads.

An item I found relatively recently has once again ignited my interest in the Berserker.

I've said a few things about what I imagined would be interesting about it in the other topic (see here: https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=169.msg3578#msg3578 - hopefully I did the linking right), but I'll reiterate quickly (maybe in a little more organized form.

- Astounding number of melee procs, not to mention that, as far as I could see with my Stonespeaker, the individual hits from Reckless Offense's multi-attack can themselves trigger Runeword: Burn (not sure about the dual-wielding ones, though - will have to test).
- War Wind and Thunder Strike both provide useful area attacks that help close the distance to ranged attackers as well.
- Ludicrous amounts of offensive ability from Weapon Training and Runeword: Feather.
- Battle Standard, Guardian Stones, Ancestral Horn... Now that sounds like something to try (later).
- Battle Rage and Sacred Rage (not that there's so much synergy between them in particular, just so much rage).

The thing that put me off from the Berserker for a long time was having to decide between going with strength and Onslaught or intelligence and Rune Weapon. While the intelligence route was tempting due to being more novel and unconventional, as well as good for having a built-in attack damage converted to health, it has its drawbacks - Hew doesn't do much on its own, the enormous offensive ability doesn't help much as elemental damage doesn't crit, Crushing Blow again doesn't do much (I don't know how powerful Crushing Blow is, anyway, but it sure is fun early in the game), Triumph is a bit less powerful... So overall, strength seemed the better choice anyway, but Berserker's Mantle convinced me completely.

Rather conveniently, I had a Warrior in the middle of Normal Egypt, developed towards strength (obviously) but without a secondary mastery (as I started that character before Ragnarök and didn't know what to choose). So... Berserking time!

Past me apparently decided that Onslaught and the Dual Wield tree were the most important to max out first, so I decided to continue that (went into Rune anyway, to get the shiny new Berserker title as well as Rune of Life - mainly for the movement speed, but the percentile increase to Strength is also good - Sacred Rage, and Thunder Strike). I have a point each in most Warfare skills, though, except for the horns (I should invest in them soon, though).

War Wind and Thunder Strike on the same character is evil. Use War Wind to close the distance in a blink of the eye, attack everyone around, and then use Thunder Strike to attack everyone around again. Playing on the highest speed option (I'm impatient) is really satisfying as pretty much every hit I land now is a critical; being surrounded pretty much means that yellow numbers float up from basically every enemy in melee range. Good stuff.

However, the reason why I started this thread is a little different.

I'm in Act III now, and usually when I enter a new act, I try a few items from my vault that look interesting. Weapons are usually less so in Normal, as Quicksilver Bludgeon stands out so much from the rest that I generally tend to end up using it far into Act IV and more. Not this time, however.

As I looked around, I had a pair of a Yin and a Yang, neatly next to each other. At the first glance, I never thought they'd be more than a pair of gimmick weapons, probably for Spellbreakers, but... sure, why not. (I really like how they're done, thematically, anyway.) Especially since I had Imperial Bracers and Imperial Greaves lying about, too.

I underestimated them. DPS increased by nearly two hundred compared to the Quicksilver Bludgeon + Marduk's Rage setup I'd been using before, and unless I'm fighting undead or constructs, the health bar doesn't really go below full (which renders Sacred Rage a little useless right now). I wanted to say that while I don't have critical hits for about 1000 damage anymore like I did with Quicksilver Bludgeon, around the end of today's session I had a few 1100-1200 crits (I assume Battle Rage and Crushing Blow did that).

Fun times. If you're like me and overlooked Yin and Yang, give them a try!

I'll keep playing with the Berserker, probably... Or one of my other characters. Either.

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Offline Tauceti

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Re: Flurry of Steel and Fire - The Berserker
« Reply #1 on: 30 March 2018, 22:12:41 »
Nice feedback. Do you intend to DW with throwing weapons too ?
I am interested in your choice of skills in the leveling, this seems not obvious. To your mind, what should be prioritized first between DW tree, onslaught, thunderstrike, battle standard or the rune:explode tree.

and what about survivability against boss until now ?

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Offline botebote77

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Re: Flurry of Steel and Fire - The Berserker
« Reply #2 on: 30 March 2018, 23:28:35 »
hello there.. I've been theorycrafting myself with a berserker for a few days now actually.. and the more i think of it, the more I'm swayed to playing it as a hybrid.. i too would make it a dual wielder but i remember my assassin had serious survivability issues late legendary and it wasn't even ragnarok already, just AE.. even with max nightshade and mandrake, life steal in both weapons and 1400+ DA.. that's when i took traps and it has helped with my survivability.. but what really helped was when i wore recharge items to make battle standard permanent.. so on my theorycrafts, that is what I'll aim for also.. but hybrids often needs total damage to benefit from all the stats it's taking.. that's where rune weapon comes in.. and of course, how many times I've said this already, symbol of the polymath :) .. battle standard gives huge flat physical and triumph reduces physical resist.. plus 99% of your attacks will crit so str wouldn't be wasted.. symbol of the polymath and a robust/hale ring probably would be enough to divide your stats into 3

I'm not trying to convince you though.. I'm sure you've thought about it plenty already.. i just write it here so i can go back here if i forget it

i think you meant runeword:explode though.. i have runeword explode and burn on both my thunderer and skinchanger and I've never seen fragments (runeword:burn) proc off melee attacks.. but I'm pretty sure runeword:explode proc off melees.. i attack multiple enemies and the animation is different.. kind of like gouge from hunting
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Offline Firebrand

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Re: Flurry of Steel and Fire - The Berserker
« Reply #3 on: 01 April 2018, 01:09:20 »
That's where I'm at a loss, Tauceti. There are just so many skills to spend points on!

Apparently, past me decided that Onslaught and the Dual Wield tree were first priorities, but that was before Rune was even a thing. And now my Warfare mastery is maxed, so I decided to get the important skills maxed in there, and then move on to Rune. What I'm planning to do is spending one more level's skill points on Warfare (to finish Dual Wield, as well as to put a point or two into Ardor), then start climbing up the Rune mastery. I plan to put one point each in the skills I consider useful (Unleash, Frightening Power, and actually surprisingly little else for the time being), reach 24 points, and then start maxing Reckless Offense and Runeword: Burn. After that... we'll see.

I imagine I'll use throwing weapons against bosses that warrant it (Porcus the Ketos comes to mind), but I'd really like to avoid them taking over the whole character, as they did with the Stonespeaker, even if that was warranted, as Rune and Earth in themselves aren't quite sturdy enough to stand up to enemies in melee.

Bosses so far have been pushovers. In fact, for the first time throughout my whole Titan Quest career, I entered the chamber with Aktaios, charged at him, and killed him without even having to move around. Once I put the standard down, things die ridiculously fast. I'm sure that's going to change, though.

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