Introduction
Berserkers have two viable raid builds that center around their two available Class Engravings; Mayhem and Berserker's Technique. This article focuses on the latter, the Berserker's Technique Berserker.
Both Berserker builds revolve around Burst Mode and dealing huge burst damage with your skills. Normally when Burst Mode ends, the player acquires the Exhaustion debuff preventing the Berserker from gaining Fury Meter (Identity Gauge) for the next 30 seconds. This stalls their next available Burst Mode. Berserker's Technique removes this debuff and gives the Berserker an additional 36% Damage when in Burst Mode.
Berserker's Technique Berserkers' primary advantage over Mayhem Berserkers are the free raw stats it gets when in Burst Mode. They gain +30% Crit Rate, +20% Attack Speed, and +20% Movement Speed, while Mayhem causes you to lose the Crit Rate and 5% from the other two stats. In Burst Mode, you gain access to a huge nuke skill called Bloody Rush. This skill deals significantly more damage from stacking Specialization.
The downside is they cannot stay in Burst Mode for a prolonged period of time like their Mayhem Berserker counterpart. When out of the mode, attacks start feeling sluggish due to losing the +20% Attack Speed and +20% Movement Speed. It takes time to charge your Fury Meter to full, but it's all worth it in the end. Reaching full meter and activating your identity is a euphoria only Berserker's Technique Berserkers know!
This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 50 before transitioning. Check out the Berserker Leveling Guide and 1-50 Leveling Guide to reach Level 50.
Check out the Mayhem Berserker for an alternative Berserker playstyle. Check out the Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides for an introduction to their content.
Raid Skill Build
- Mountain Crash is a Counter Attack that helps generate gauge for Burst Mode. Use Vital Point Hit to grant you crit rate buff outside of Red Dust for your filler rotations. This skill also helps maintain your 6% party buff synergy when outside of your main burst rotation.
- Red Dust is an important skill that amplifies damage done to a target. Hitting Red Dust will grant 24% Attack Power for 6 seconds. Damage Amplification provides a 6% party buff when hitting the skill.
- Hell Blade is usually used as a gap closer with its leap to reposition yourself after dodging mechanics. It is one of your highest damage skills with high Stagger.
- Wind Blade is 1 of your high Fury Meter gain skill that can be used for gap closing as well. Like many Berserker skills, it has decent Stagger.
- Overdrive is 1 of your main Fury Meter generator while also being your main burst damage skill and all that is thanks to Burst Enhancement allowing the skill to reset it's cooldown when entering Burst Mode and it has massive meter gain by default.
- Finish Strike offers high damage and high Stagger. The first row Skill Tree, Gravitational Blow has quite a start-up animation if you do not have Galewind to back it up but the damage increase basically makes this 1 of the 2 highest damage skill in your rotations.
- Tempest Slash is a decent damage and Stagger skill. It also generates a decent chunk of your Fury Meter.
- Bloody Rush is your Z skill when you are in Burst Mode. Its damage is extremely high, so you consistently use it off cooldown.
Alternatives
- Finish Strike's first skill tree node can be switched to Enhanced Strike for increased damage, while not as punishing as Gravitational Blow reduced start-up time if you're not confident with bosses mechanics. If you're new to the game Tenacity can be used as a training wheel until you're more confident in using any of the other 2 damage increase tripods. but the end game choice is preference between Enhanced Strike if you want half a second faster animation but you lose 9.8% overall damage over Gravitational Blow.
- Overdrive third skill tree node can be switched to Limit Break more damage per burst but with a longer cooldown that might lead to awkward timing windows to reuse the skill or Ruthless for more consistent cooldown sync with Red Dust but with lesser damage.
Skill Rotations
Skill Difference:
- Overdrive with Ruthless
- Tempest Slash with Focus
Opening Meter Rotation
- Wind Blade > Tempest Slash > Mountain Crash > Overdrive > Brave Slash > Red Dust > Burst Mode
Note: Depending on how much Specialization stats you have you might need to switch the grades of Wealth runes between Wind Blade, Tempest Slash , Overdrive and Brave Slash.
You need at least 1556 Specialization Stats in order to use Galewind on Overdrive and move Wealth to Wind Blade and Wealth to Brave Slash to generate full meter. if you're using Driving Hit on Tempest Slash, but only requires 1489 Specialization with Storm Slash.
DPS Rotation
- Red Dust > Burst Mode > Berserk Fury > Bloody Rush > Finish Strike > Overdrive
- Mountain Crash > Brave Slash > Hell Blade
- Wait for few seconds for Finish Strike to sync cooldown with Red Dust.
- Red Dust > Tempest Slash > Finish Strike > Overdrive
- Mountain Crash > Brave Slash > Bloody Rush
- Red Dust > Hell Blade > Finish Strike > Overdrive (the last hit will not be in Red Dust window)
- Mountain Crash > Brave Slash > Tempest Slash
- Red Dust > Bloody Rush > Finish Strike > Overdrive*
- Mountain Crash > Brave Slash > Hell Blade
*On the 8th line, if you have low Specialization stats or cooldown gems levels, try to keep Overdrive and Brave Slash after Bloody Rush ends. This will help fill up meter again.
Stats Priority
Berserker's Technique Berserkers aim for Crit and high Specialization. During Burst Mode you receive an additional 30% Crit Rate, 20% Attack Speed and 20% Movement Speed. Because of this, a high Crit stat isn't necessary, but a high Specialization stat is. High Specialization also increases Fury Meter gain from skills, increases the uptime of Burst Mode, and increases the damage of your Awakening and Bloody Rush.
- High Specialization Build: The only Crit stat you should have on your accessories comes from your necklace. You want Specialization on everything else.
at High End Tier 3 it is possible to get 1570+ Specialization and 370+ Swiftness and 500+ Crit with Crit from the necklace and a ring with Swiftness , Swiftness will be at 240-260 but will compensate back up to 340-380 after including Bracelet.
Bracelet
Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls.
Note: Bracelets should not be your top priority to optimize since it'll be much more efficient to optimize your other gear first. Bracelets are costly! So slowly build towards a Main Stat and a Sub Stat. Anything else is extra!
Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.
Possible Special Effects to Roll:
Optimal
Combat Stats(Specialization + Swiftness)
Circulate
Fervor
Hammer
Wedge
Alternatives
Basic Effect(Strength)
Precise
Assail
Superiority
Sawtooth Blade
Weapon Power
Harvest
Expose Weakness
Dagger
Ambush
Engravings
Class Engravings provide powerful stat boosts that dictate the playstyle of a class. Battle Engravings are generally used to increase damage. Below are the recommended Engravings for this build.
Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.
Starter Engravings
- Berserker's Technique fixes the most crucial problem of Berserker by removing the Exhaustion debuff that gets applied after Burst Mode ends. The Exhaustion debuff makes it so that no Fury Meter can be gained for 30 seconds after Burst Mode ends.
- Keen Blunt Weapon* requires a high Crit stat to make use of its bonus. Thankfully, you receive a free Crit Rate stat boost once in Burst Mode.
Add-On Endgame Engravings
- Raid Captain is strong on berserker because of the innate movement speed buff they get from Burst Mode. At 140% movement speed, Raid Captain provides 18% increased damage output.
- Grudge* increases damage done while also increasing damage received. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase without needing specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
- Cursed Doll* is an easy Attack Power increase at the cost of 25% healing penalty. The healing penalty can be punishing for inexperienced players not familiar with boss mechanics.
- Mass Increase* can be punishing as it reduces your attack speed but it gets compensated with Poem of Salvation Set effect, though it can still be uncomfortable when outside of Burst Mode, especially without a support.
(*)These Engravings should only be used at Engraving Level 3.
Optimal Setups
Engravings are listed in order of priority from left to right.
Standard
Gear Sets
Check out the Gear Set Guide for more details.
Early Game
250-1100 gearscore
Providence Set
1250-1340 gearscore
Dimensional Set
Early Tier 3
1340 -1414 gearscore
Erupting Waves Set
Piercing Gaze Set
Craft any combination of the legendary gear sets listed above and try to push to 1415 as soon as possible.
Tier 3 Legion Raid Set
1415-1490-1580+ gearscore
Salvation Set
The name of your set will change with every higher tier gearset you acquire, but the set effect will remain the same. Look for the keyword of your set when recrafting it so you don't easily get lost.(e.g Entropy, Hallucination etc)
Sidereal Weapon
Recommended Sidereal Unity Effects for your Seraphic Mount Havoc are Thirain and Balthorr.
Check out the Sidereal Weapon Guide for more details.
Runes
Runes enhance skills by providing bonuses such as Attack Speed or Cooldown Reduction. Runes have limited availability and you cannot acquire them from the same source twice. For some runes there are 2 sources and as such, you can acquire two of the same rune rarity. Therefore, it's important to place your Runes on skills wisely. Below are the recommended rune placements for Berserker's Technique Berserker.
Check the Rune Guide for more details.
Skills | Runes |
Finish Strike | Galewind (2nd Legendary Grade) Galewind |
Tempest Slash | Wealth |
Brave Slash | Wealth Galewind |
Red Dust | Bleed |
Overdrive | Galewind Wealth |
Hell Blade | Galewind |
Mountain Crash | Purify Wealth |
Wind Blade | Wealth |
- Bleed works best on skills with low cooldowns. For Berserkers though, we are putting it on Red Dust.
- Galewind should be applied on almost all damage skills when we get enough rarities of them. Most of Berserker's skills have a long cast time.
- Wealth should be applied on your highest Fury Meter gain skills like Wind Blade.
- Quick Recharge helps you with a chance of reducing the overall cooldown of skills.
- Purify can be slotted on any skill just for the chance of removing a debuff.
- Overwhelm is used to increase Stagger damage of the skills, but it is an alternative rune if the player doesn't have anything else to equip on the skills.
- Rage will help speed up the DPS rotation when it procs for it's attack speed bonus.
(*) Optional skill choices.
Gear Skill Tree
While Gems add benefits to skills, you can also increase the effects of Skill Tree themselves. Skill Tree levels go up to 5 and each level can increase the damage, cooldown reduction or buff that they provide.
For more information on how to add equipment Skill Tree and how to get them, please visit our Skill Tree System Guide.
Finish Strike | Enhanced Strike or Gravitational Blow Weak Point Detection Lights Out |
Tempest Slash | Focus or Quick Prep Weak Point Detection Driving Hit |
Hell Blade | Melt Earth Flip |
Overdrive | Weak Point Detection Burst Enhancement Ruthless |
Mountain Crash | Vital Point Hit |
Brave Slash | Quick Prep Burst Enhancement Acrimony |
Red Dust | Vital Point Hit |
Wind Blade | Focus Windswift |
Gems
Gems grant bonus damage and cooldown reduction to specific skills. You can only equip 11 of these Gems at a time so it is recommended that you prioritize the Gems for your most important skills.
Please visit our Gem System Guide for more information like how to create higher tier Gems.
Attack Gems
Finish Strike
Bloody Rush
Overdrive
Hell Blade
Tempest Slash
Brave Slash
Cooldown Gems
Finish Strike
Bloody Rush
Overdrive
Hell Blade
Red Dust
Card Sets
Cards are an endgame system for maximizing your character. Below are the recommended sets for this class.
Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain them.
Budget Card Set
Budget Damage Card Set 2
This card set does not replace Light of Salvation set or Kazero's Legion Commanders set, but it can be use if you're new to the game and has set to get your Light of Salvation/Kazero's Legion Commanders set +18 or +30 yet.
Optimal Damage Card Set
Summary
- Berserker's Technique is a mandatory engraving for Berserker, allowing them to gain Fury Meter right after Burst Mode ends.
- Most Berserker skills have high Stagger and contribute a large part to boss mechanics.
- Lead with Red Dust into your other heavy hitting skills. If done properly, you'll be able to fit in your entire rotation within the 6 second debuff window.
- Grudge, Cursed Doll, and Keen Blunt Weapon are great Battle Engravings that do not have positional conditions.
Credits
Written by Rei
Reviewed by Starlast