Berserk Barbarian Guide

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Important: Make sure you have 0 sources of Cold Damage on your gear, inventory, and Mercenary. Even 1 Cold Damage can shatter Elite Monsters, leaving behind no corpse to use Find Item on. Thus, having a source(s) of Cold Damage significantly lowers your Magic Finding efficiency.

Gear Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) Only use Naj's Puzzler, a Staff of Teleportation, or a Teleport Charge Amulet for Teleport Charges if you have not yet acquired Enigma.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to Immunities or bad layouts.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Build Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Insight, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to boost Berserk's damage and help deal with enemies that are Immune to Magic, our primary Damage source. This Mercenary can also execute other Elites and their minions while your are killing your target Elite(s). Equip him with Insight for the high Mana Regeneration provided by Meditation Aura. Guillaume's Face and Treachery improve the Mercenary's damage while completely avoiding sources of Cold Damage (see "Gear Options" above).

Alternatively, equip the Berserk Barbarian Mercenary with Stealskull, Skullder's Ire, and Tomb Reaver for a maximum Magic Find, Mercenary-killing approach.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Equip the weapon you want to use Berserk with (such as Grief) on your main-hand weapon slot (left slot).
• If you equip Harmony on Weapon-Swap, use its Vigor Aura to quickly travel through town and towards your Farming Spot. If you are using an item with Teleport Charges, use Teleport for short-distance traveling when farming Super Uniques such as Pindleskin. Repair to replenish these Charges.
• At the beginning of each run, swap to your + to Skills equipment and cast Battle Command 2 times, then Battle Orders and Shout once each. Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire (approx. every 3-5 minutes).
• Upon encountering an Elite Monster (Unique, Super Unique, or Champion), while on Weapon-Swap, cast Howl as close as possible to it to scatter all nearby minion and regular monsters. Use Teleport to position optimally if you have it.
• Once a target Elite is isolated, swap back to your main weapon loadout and use Berserk until it is dead - this usually takes 1-3 weapon swings. If you have Teleport and there are other Elites nearby, "Telestomp" them and use Berserk to take them down.
• Cast Howl at any time to scatter encroaching minion and regular monsters to prevent being surrounded or diluting the corpses on the ground with low priority targets.
• Once the Elites in an immediate area have been killed, Weapon-Swap to your Faster Cast Rate or Magic Find-granting equipment and use Find Item on each Elite corpse. "Horking" corpses gives a chance of loot dropping a second time!
• Alternatively, you can use Find Item on your main weapon loadout if it has significantly more Magic Find than your Weapon-Swap. This is especially beneficial when farming Super Uniques like Pindleskin.

For Act Bosses:

• Optional: Cast Battle Cry near Act Bosses before slaying them with Berserk. This is especially helpful for reducing Diablo's Life on the "Chaos Prep" Build Variant (see "Build Variants" below).

Immunities

• Upon encountering Magic Immune Unique monsters, isolate them with Howl and “Telestomp” them to allow your Mercenary to deal Physical Damage with Jab. Supplement additional Physical Damage with your 1-Point Concentrate.
• Skip Unique monsters that are both Magic and Physical Immune.

Late-Game

• While on your Faster Cast Rate-granting Weapon-Swap, use Teleport from Enigma to travel to your Farming Spot or between Elite Packs.

Optimal Loot/Experience Farming Strategies

• The Pit Solo - This loot-farming strategy is the source of this build's "Pit Zerker" nickname. The Pit is a Max Level Area with many low Life Elite Monsters, making it a goldmine for the Zerker with his Find Item Skill and high Teleport mobility. Farm this area Solo on B-Net or /Players1 on Single Player.
• Pindleskin and/or Thresh Socket Solo - No build can take advantage of these easily accessible Super Unique loot piñatas like the Zerk Barb can. "Hork" Super Unique corpses for a chance to get 4 items per kill! Pindle and Thresh are fairly easy to kill, allowing you to maximize your Magic Find using items such as Immortal King's Will. You can even choose to forgo the Cannot Be Frozen stat entirely. Farm these Super Uniques Solo on B-Net or /Players1 on Single Player.
• Uber Keys - Traveling to, isolating, and killing the Key Bosses is a breeze for any fully-geared Berserk Barbarian using Enigma.
• Chaos Sanctuary Preparation in a Full Game - The Berserk Barbarian is uniquely equipped to isolate and destroy the Seal Bosses in Chaos Sanctuary. Even in a full game, this build can spawn Diablo incredibly fast by focusing on popping Seals and assassinating the Seal Boss Super Uniques. See the "Chaos Prep" Build Variant to learn more about this strategy.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for the 105% FCR Breakpoint on Weapon-Swap for Enigma Teleport cast speed on the Standard Build. Build Variants require different values. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon Bases have different IAS Breakpoints. Reach the 42% IAS Breakpoint on the Standard Build. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Grief Phase Blade & Unbending Will Phase Blade

Grief Zweihander

Oath Highland Blade

Oath Balrog Blade

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery is not required for survivability on this build, and focusing on it interferes with the primary objective of stacking as much Magic Find on your gear as possible. Certain Breakpoints are utilized by Build Variants, however.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

The Berserk Barbarian can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear, Stat Point allocation, and Skills. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: Equip Stormshield instead of a Gemmed Phase Blade to keep your Hardcore Berserk Barbarian alive. Its % Damage Reduction, Increased Chance of Blocking, and Resistances drastically increase your survivability while using Berserk. You can still stack some Magic Find here by socketing an Ist Rune.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond the default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Spirit Monarch and Wizardspike are the best options for stacking Resistances on your Weapon-Swap. Spirit Monarch also grants Chance to Block for safer Teleporting in addition to + to Skills for improved Battle Orders and Find Item. Charms, Jewelry, Boots, and Gloves are ideal sources of Resistances for your main weapon loadout.
• Faster Hit Recovery: Aim for the 27% Faster Hit Recovery Breakpoint with your Charms. This provides additional safety while casting Teleport on Weapon-Swap where you have no Chance to Block. However, when on your main weapon loadout with maximum Chance to Block (75%), Faster Hit Recovery is not as important.

Stat Point Changes

• Only allocate enough Stat Points into Strength to wear Stormshield.
• Allocate enough Stat Points into Dexterity to achieve maximum Chance to Block (75%).
• Put all remaining Stat Points into Vitality.

Skill Point Changes

• Max out Battle Orders before putting additional Skill Points into the Find Item Synergy Find Potion.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.