D2R Skills & Abilities - Berserk (Barbarian Combat Skills)

[@MsGhoulz]

If you're haunted by a ghost just flail about in a rage and you'll transcend dimensions to harm it.

[@colclark87]

I played offline SSF back in the day bc I wasn't allowed to be on the interwebs... My Berserk Barb was my most successful character. I ran Polearm due to being able to make them SUPER strong on a budget. 6 sockets is quite nice. You briefly mentioned the solution I used but it was one point in Grim Ward. It allowed me to stand on the Ward and hit anything that walked up. Ward also works on Champs IIRC. Jump at ranged packs and Howl away trash if you're on farming runs. Of course a berserker isn't the fastest out there, but he was very reliable for SSF.

[@lightningandodinify]

I didn't know 'reduces defense' literally dropped it to 0. 😳 Still a really cool idea for ability that fits the concept of the barbarian really well imo.

[@nimck6642]

I honestly think Phoenix shield is a great choice. Not only does it give you redemption, but it also gives you ED%, Firestorm, resists, life, and fire absorb for some extra survivability outside of actual defense.

[@Cornholers]

Pheonix sux for block rate

[@GGMentor]

An Interesting way to restore health for sure, assuming you can kill quickly enough. You would also have to avoid cold damage to prevent losing all your corpses to shattering.

[@nimck6642]

@@Cornholers comparatively but it’s not too bad overall. Stormshield is another good option for the more defensive players

[@pikkagtr1942]

85 fire resist and Fire absorb will tickle and heal me during my Trav runs can stand there and not even die you need 16% fire absorb to start being in the positive direction

[@InBananaBag]

Wow I didn't know that berserk take that much of a challenge to be viable. Thanks for the explanation and great video

[@hunn20004]

I never understood when the mastery calculations took place. Good to see that it reflects in the stat menu

[@ItsShooty]

I'm just marvelling at that transition from "professional-voice-youtuber-guy" to baby talking a chinchilla and right back lmao

[@GGMentor]

MY CHINCHILLAS ARE SO CUTE AND FLUFFY YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW! =]

[@kristopherleslie8343]

I wish we could get some mentalist updates for assassin. It would be a good thing if they synergized mind blast + psychic hammer and maybe even open the flood gates. Considering Concentration does amp up hammers, why not let it do the same for magic skills that would allow some dmg bumps for necro/assassin and amazon

[@magne7771]

I'm a little disappointed it didn't start with Berserk music Also +1 for the _"I ain't no bitch! Stop tryin' to hit me and _*_hit me!"_* skill.

[@kristopherleslie8343]

I think the pros that say defense is negligible, say that due to them using a form of movement acceleration to get around :) . I agree with you defense may not be the greatest property, but I sure would love to keep it decent!

[@sadp9013]

Great for 1 point to deal with amune if you are a consatrated barb

[@Itz_KLONOPIN]

I would never un a billion years use Berzerk without Being Frenzied. All you need to make Zer viable us put at least 1 point into Frenzy and just keep up your frenzy. That fixes all the issues it has usung Berzerk by itself

[@iconayl1299]

You've mentioned all my problems ! :-) Still playing the original single player LOD with my Beserk Barbarian (selffound items only) my only chance to survive in hell is my holy freeze merc. ;-) That's the price for magic destruction. thanx and regards from Germany

[@GGMentor]

Magic destruction lol I love it

[@Ubeogesh]

How about war cry and howl Be creative man

[@iconayl1299]

​@@Ubeogesh I am not a creative person :-) I used war cry for a while, but the radius is too small and the mana cost too high - not my style. Howl I have never used - I don't want to chase fleeing monsters I want them to come to me dutifully - ready for shredding ! ;-)

[@Ubeogesh]

@@iconayl1299 you do combinations man. War Cry for stunning to not get swarmed, not for spamming (mana cost is fine for this). Taunt is for archers and mages. Howl is when it's too hot to handle.

[@JJV7243]

Thanks - learning a lot from these videos. Question - I heard that "beserk/item find" barbs are super common to be used for farming the travincal council. Why is this so (compared to other builds)?

[@GGMentor]

Generally the Barbarian relies on his mercenary to kill the council but the mercenary can't do anything other than physical damage really. So berserk is used to kill any physical immune

[@marianpetera8436]

The simple reason why barbarians are the strongest MF chars is Find Item. Zerk hits like truck with relatively little investment. Barbarians can also dual wield, so in main hand you have the killing weapon (Grief is the top, ethereal Oath is very solid budget option, or the upcoming Unbending Will should be great too), and offhand can have a MF weapon (6x Ist crystal sword for the rich, Alibaba for budget). Berserk only attacks with main hand weapon, never offhand. The most damage you will be taking in Travincal is fire (from hydras), and fire is easy to counter - if you equip items like Hotspur, Dwarfstar, or Rising Sun, those firebolts may actually start to heal you. In other lvl 85 areas (say, the famous Pitzerker build), you just scare trash away with Howl (synergy of Berserk), kill the unique boss, and then Find Item the corpse. 0 defense is ok, because you are taking hits only from the unique monster, all its minions are fleeing away.

[@marianpetera8436]

@@JJV7243 Berserk has the highest damage per point spent and overall damage bonus of all barb skills. It kills fast, much faster than Frenzy, and only requires 1 weapon. The other one (and rest of your gear) can be magic find, gold find, or whatever you desire. Defense is much less of a factor in Travincal, most of the scary damage is elemental (mainly fire).

[@rammpeth]

I was one of those who thought defense was useless and then i played hc lol. One thing im not sure you have explained before (you probably have) is that defense reduces the chance of getting hit vs dmg reduction that reduces the damage when you DO get hit so ultimately over a period of time high def with no dr and no def with high dr are probably the same So high def with no dr and high dr with zero def over time might average the same.

[@GGMentor]

Thing is most people tend to have a decent level of defense without trying. But when you have 0 😂🤣 things go very bad

[@rionsgaming7415]

to further increase survivability you can use soul drain gloves if you can get weaken to proc. (-33% enemy dmg)

[@GGMentor]

Higher now they changed it in 2.4

[@Cornholers]

U don't need survival shit bro it's a one hit wonder skill

[@michaellui5108]

Let’s Go!

[@thebbcjoke]

I think the berserker build always went well with the % damage goes to mana affixes. Only one of those can keep your mana practically full after a fight.

[@GGMentor]

Damage taken goes to mana works well on melee classes in general

[@bladibla1234]

Following on from another comment - why does getting angry get magic damage?

[@GGMentor]

lol, I mean you're not wrong.

[@mb824]

I really thought the howl synergy for berserk was a fantastic change. Howl is how I mitigate damage. Berserk shines as a boss/elite sniper. Howl every non boss pack away. Enemies running in fear do really low damage as it turns out.

[@GGMentor]

I prefer Grim Totem personally. It slows them down as they run away which makes them easy to pick off and also decreases their physical resistance. Also grim totem stays active for a nice duration which means you end up with a super safe area for the entire duration of the ability

[@ijustwanttonap]

​@@GGMentorInteresting. Never tried grim totem.

[@runehalm6059]

Nice guide! THX 🙂

[@lancelongie8919]

What makes you a good solid view is... theres no loss of rabbit

[@adamhero459]

Yes. Defence is the least important stat. But that is the case only once you have about 1000 -1500 depending on what you playing as, as that is when the diminishing returns really start to kick in. Or at least that was the case as it has been a while since I played unmodded d2.

[@GGMentor]

Except when you have zero 😂

[@stofsk]

I don't think Defence is the least important stat, I think it's underrated. Defence is the first to-hit calculation. If you have a high defence many attacks won't go through. Concentrate Barbs for instance are one of the safest HC builds you can use. You don't even need a shield for them, tho there's a two-handed unique sword that was designed for Conc Barbs.

[@GGMentor]

@@stofsk I think the issue is that most people die from things defense doesn't protect against. Defense won't protect against spells, corpse explosions, stygian dolls, curses, conviction aura, ect. In general there are so many things defense can't do that what it does do is often overshadowed. Like a 80k defense barbarian can practically go afk in a bunch of hell cows and take a nap. But put that same barbarian against gloams or stygian dolls and you have serious issues

[@stofsk]

​@@GGMentor agreed, it doesn't protect you from everything. It's one of those things that if it's working you don't really notice it but if it's NOT working you notice it pretty quickly. Unlike say blocking, which has animation, so you can go 'Ah-ha! My block chance is good/working.' Or resistances where having maxed or near max resistances vs little to no or even negative resistances is a stark contrast.

[@JuckiCZ]

It is the least important stat, because so many characters are ranged so they avoid being hit by movement and distance. But if you consider melee characters, defense is on par with resist all. Berserk ability would be awesome on Amazon that can use dodge abilities, but on Barbarian, who is great on increasing defense stat, has no dodge and his shield block is low, it hurts a lot to loose all defense.

[@JuckiCZ]

It seems like Prayer mercenary could have done use overall :-D. Equip him with Holy Freeze polearm runeword and profit from slower enemies and high regeneration. I would still grab a shield for some block though.

[@ijustwanttonap]

I use a spirit for the plus 2 skills and res. The extra vitality is welcome also.

[@petervlcko4858]

you have to hit quick and you have to slow enemies to make it work, blind and stun could help too...

[@francootaola9172]

An inmortalish barb with berserk +max reduction damage % + max flat reduction + some live regen? 🤔

[@GGMentor]

Could be an interesting challenge

[@francootaola9172]

@@GGMentor love giving you challenges ^^.

[@bopeswiththemost4415]

In my experiments, replenish life even stacked just doesn't cut it. Especially when you are taking hits of hundreds of HP per shot. Even with an Act 2 prayer merc, it's still not going to keep you alive. Great for topping you off outside of combat, but other than that... not viable, in my opinion.

[@scbask2]

I run zerk on my trav horker and hes great. Have 3500 life and I have grief and ss for that little bit of dr and max resist. Only occasionally need pots since I can one or two shot even elite monsters there. But I definitely see the drawbacks of taking him out to other areas.

[@GGMentor]

Well if it's dead it can't hurt you 😂 But good luck somewhere like cows. Even being able to one shot every cow you could still be surrounded by 30-50 cows and end up dead anyway while fishing out the hurt.

[@johnhoray6623]

These videos are fantastic.

[@GGMentor]

Thank you John

[@jeffpayne9655]

WW seems the best choice, it doesn't have any synergies.

[@randychristensen1028]

I run a WW Barb with max Blade Mastery. I only have one point into Berserk with max BO because Battle Orders is just a given. Even with that one point into Berserk things still die in a couple hits using dual Grief

[@Barnewallian]

You don't use berserk exclusively. The strongest barb build I ever made is whirl, blade mast, berserk. Whirl gives you all the leech you want and more, berserk brings down particularly tough monsters and pesky physical immunes/stone skins. I mainly use him for mf/hork. He can clear any area whatsoever, and very quickly for a barb. Gear is grief/azurewrath (better than 2x grief imo, perfect synergy between those two), dual upped shael ali babas, enigma, and the classic arreats, loh, gore, highlords, nosferatu. If I feel like killing p8 Baal, I just give him gface. Enigma is mostly life quality. Any decent armor will do. Literally any, you can really give him whatever you want. Just make sure he gets to around +100% frw to avoid the dreaded whirlwind pauses.

[@frankenstein3163]

Will a CB weapon on offhand help main hand ? What's a good budget off hand ? I want oath at least in one off the hand's.

[@GGMentor]

as far as I know Berserk doesn't use the offhand stats.

[@lewishosking]

I heard that weapons like Grief allow a zerk barb to get some leech because of the way the added damage applies, but I haven't tried it and I don't know if they patched it or anything. Nevertheless it's worth investing.

[@stofsk]

thinking about making a Beserker Barb when 2.4 hits, but I'd probably wait for ladder so that I can (eventually) make that new sword runeword. An interesting combo I think is using War Cry or Battle Cry along with Beserk. The former stuns enemies, the latter reduces their damage output - combine that with PDR, both percentage and integer, and a Big Fucking Sword/Axe/Mace, and you can probably take out most anything in the game that isn't outright Magic Immune. I agree with you, the old Shout synergy made no sense. Kinda feel like even the Battle Orders synergy doesn't make any sense, Howl and War Cry should have been the synergies IMO. Some builds say that the zerker is the best (or one of the best) MF builds in the game! Howl gets trash to flee leaving the boss packs just with the boss to deal with and they get sorted with a zerk hit or two.

[@kristopherleslie8343]

Even if it’s magic immune a quick weapon swap stops that ❤

[@theworldisa]

Great video, thanks for sharing

[@brianhanson7118]

Other ways to deal with physical immunes? I have a Frenzy Barb and would like to avoid spending points to get to Berserk

[@GGMentor]

Elemental Damage weapons specifically are rather good on Frezny barbs. There are tons of options like, Famine, Baranar's Star, Voice of reason, Gimmershred, Balrog Spear, ect. You can also utilize items that have amplify damage to break physical immunity like lacerator, or Decrepify items like Reapers toll/lawbringer.

[@PedroJPedro]

You can make a lawbringer runeword. It has the ability to deal damage to the undead monsters that are usually those pesky physical immunes and has a high chance to prod decrepify that can break most others. Super cheap to make as well.

[@CornyCF]

If Diablo is a school subjekt i want you as my teacher 🙂

[@pioneer7777777]

How do you experiment with resetting your skill points? Is there a specific game mode you are in that lets you just reset it to do this demonstration?

[@GGMentor]

Look up my seven commands video

[@pioneer7777777]

@@GGMentor Cool, just watched it. One question - if I have an online character that I want to experiment with, l respeccing, does it keep them separated, so I can experiment and not affect the main online character?

[@GGMentor]

@@pioneer7777777 the Respec command only works on offline characters

[@SlimStarCraft]

Hey ggm does this mean crushing blow & open wounds still works? If its magic damage?

[@GGMentor]

So the type of damage doesn't matter, what matters is if it's considered a ranged or melee hit. For instance, tornado is a spell that is physical damage. It does not work with open wounds or crushing blow because it is a spell. Berserk is magic damage, but it is a Melee ability. Because it is a melee ability, it works with open wounds and crushing blow.

[@SlimStarCraft]

​@@GGMentor ok thanks, because i was using life steal on my bezerker trav barb, but after watching this video i though well maybe crushing blow works the same but yeah. I didn't know about the life steak not working I wonder how many other people don't know that. Great video

[@GGMentor]

@@SlimStarCraft man I love me some life steam yummy 😋

[@Droppingtotes]

Deadly strike and Berserk work together. This very may well be the "strongest" single target attack in the game. (Yes I know charged strike is stuff of legends get outta here Amazons -.- )

[@jetttor]

my barb no use shield. I think that is a "shame" for any barb use shield. I use polearm "BoneHew Ogre" + 2 jewels (Yes, i have Bersek at 22 point). I switch it to 2 swords "SIlence" and "Death" with double Swing (no mana need and steal life) and work fine for Hell even 8 players. only with a HUGE pack of Champs Death Lords or Burning Souls with Fanats or Conviction better runaway cause is 100% sure death.

[@GunfighterAlpha]

I run my frenzy barb with grief/LB main hand and Death/2 isted baba on offhand for trav. In MF gear im at 445%MF and 1 point in zerk after building stacks on trash is an easy clear. Shako/Enigma/LoH/String/WarTravs/Maras/Nagel/rare AR-LLx4res ring. I dont struggle with anything on P1 Bnet Barbs IMO are highly underrated toons. Am I losing points for horking? Yes but I have a character that can clear any act/boss without issue. Hes my cruise control toon

[@Cornholers]

I used to one shot people with this skill back in the day 😂

[@Cornholers]

Btw u should be using a shield with max block, high life, strong fast one hander will carry you

[@patrickbovin8023]

Educational, Berserk is def a side arm XD

[@TheFlenen]

Came for info... Stayed for the chinchilla

[@GGMentor]

Mr Nimoy is my buddy =}

[@stephenphelan626]

I realize this is heresy. But would this work on a bow?

[@Droppingtotes]

No can't use Berserk on a bow. Combat Skills are Melee only, but Amazon has Magic Arrow and some bows have Magic Arrow on strike

[@lancelongie8919]

Dude, how do we play together?

[@lancelongie8919]

No fame flail, just wanna quest with the marmot

[@richardleston5237]

Redemption Aura

[@GGMentor]

Made the video yesterday, it will be up eventually lol

[@randychristensen1028]

Can you still hork corpses after Redemption takes affect?

[@GGMentor]

@@randychristensen1028 no anything that uses a corpse defiles the corpse and prevents any further corpse related skill from working. In the case of redemption, every single body hit by the ability is no longer usable by any other corpse related skill.

[@jasoncullen2067]

🥇

[@GGMentor]

🏅

[@lancelongie8919]

Rip daisy

[@sadp9013]

Double heal nerc would be usefull

[@GGMentor]

A Replenish life build could certainly work with this, I would imagine Max life/Max Replenish life build.

[@sadp9013]

Maybe absorb would work too

[@GGMentor]

@@sadp9013 anything to help your tankyness =)

[@shadedstory]

Beserk barb with two grief phase blades lol

[@setasan]

Berserk + grief + stormshield = recking mobs

[@kristopherleslie8343]

Sounds like Phoenix shield 🛡

[@GGMentor]

That could certainly be a way to offset the lack of life leach. Wouldn't really work for bosses though.

[@kristopherleslie8343]

@@GGMentor yup 👍🏽 but I would Prolly use stormshield in the cases like that. While we’re are on the topic bro what’s the likely hood of me hitting for 20k per beserk hit?

[@kristopherleslie8343]

@@GGMentor I have a question, what does skillers do for berserk vs using damage charms?

[@GGMentor]

@@kristopherleslie8343 increases the Percentage conversion of magic damage, increases your attack rating, and decreases the duration of the defense loss

[@kristopherleslie8343]

@@GGMentor so for the elite / end game, would it be cheaper to get plus skills for the synergies, or do they need hard points per se? I noticed most people are obviously going the direct/sometimes chooser route with charms to add dmg/ar/life

[@Ubeogesh]

The hint how to use berserk is in the skill tooltip. 17 minutes about 1 skill and you failed to talk about talk about the howl synergy.

[@GGMentor]

Lol my bad, I will fix that in the howl video. However making monsters run away isn't generally conducive to melee attacks. Also it doesn't work on most bosses, super uniques, champions or regular uniques Something that in the end isn't really a solution.

[@tldrinfographics5769]

Barb is the weakest character No proper elemental or magic AOE Totally outclassed by Paladin

[@spikespiegel2378]

The constant grunting when using the skill is so annoying

[@GGMentor]

You just need to grunt along spike 🤣