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Zerk Secrets and Shadows PVE Guide
Tera Secrets and Shadows Zerk Guide
Introduction
Hello! I’m Ulta, I’ve been playing Tera since cbt. I didn’t start as a zerk, but very shortly after I started playing I fell in love with my zerk and abandoned my archer (forever?). I’ve cleared every piece of content that’s came out in Tera’s lifespan and will continue to do so. I’m not the best zerk, there’s many many many better zerks than me. But I’ve got a good handle on it and should be able to help most up their game and perform a little better. I feel like zerks are being forgotten because every says we’re “low tier”. First thing about this guide. Screw those people. While yes, we will do less dps than brawlers and gunners and most other classes of EQUAL SKILL AND GEAR. But that’s the best thing about tera, not everyone has equal skill and equal gear. I’ve outdps’d brawlers and I’ve been outdps’d by archers. It’s all about skill and the work you put into your class.
Navigating the Guide
To Navigate the guide press Ctrl-F and type in the code for the section you want to see.
Gear- $1
Gear Rolls- $2
-Weapon Rolls- $2A
-Chest Rolls- $2b
-Glove Rolls- $2C
-Boot Rolls- $2D
-Belt Rolls- $2E
Etchings- $3
Innerwear- $4
Jewelry- $5
Crystals- $6
Glyphs- $7
Skills- $8
Rotations- $9
Skill Breakdowns- $10
Consumables- $11
Dungeon Tips- $12
Upcoming Buffs- $13
Why you’d pick up a Zerk
If you love huge crits then you’ll love zerks. If you love being a dps that can block, then you’ll love zerks. The class is a metal-wearing melee dps. Most of our skills are charge skills and if the character is built correctly can put out some insanely high crits. We’re not as mobile as most of the classes out there, but if certain skills are used correctly then movability isn’t too bad. (Also if you play a popo zerk, the animations are adorable, just saying)
Gear$1
Gear makes or breaks zerks, unfortunately with the current class balances and situations zerks are very gear and consumable heavy. Not so much for your casual players, but when you want to stay relevant in the tryhard runs I, personally, feel like zerks are more dependent on better gear and extra consumables to squeeze every little bit of dps out us.
So the current gear progression at 65 is such Dreadnaught>Slaughter/Starfall>Imperator(VM7).
So where the hell do I get that gear?
Dreadnaught can be purchased using Tyrant’s Bloodstones and Undershade tokens. The gear will drop in Kalivan’s Dreadnaught Normal Mode.
Slaughter is dropped in DFNM(Demokron Factory Normal mode) and can also be purchased with the Shadcore Tokens.
Starfall is the previous patch’s BiS, it is still relevant as of now. Being a Visionmaker set it does not drop anywhere. It can only be crafted. First you need the plans called Stellar Ancient Blueprint(just buy of the tb, they’re cheap) and then need Desolaurus Heartbeats, Ghostly Seals, Dreadnaught Spars, Sea Ash and Dreadnaught Ingots. Open your Dungeon Finder and look at what each instance drops to see what dungeons you need to run to get those Items. Another quick way is to obtain these items from pvp.
Imperator is the current BiS gear. It is also a Visionmaker set so it has to be crafted. The plans are dropped independently in the new dungeons. To craft it you’ll need Vengeance Versa, Vernal Bark, Self-Boiling Obkma, Rune of Secrets, and Colluva Ingot. (These names are placeholders, expect them to change.) Once again open up your dungeon finder to see which dungeons drop which mats. You can also obtain these Items from pvp battlegrounds.
Gear Rolls$2
Weapon Rolls$2A
I'm going to give 3 different sets of weapon rolls here. The first will be for the newly gearing character, primarily in dreadnaught, that can't afford the semi-enigmatic scrolls to properly roll the jewelry. Instead of the proper double damage to enrage rolls it subs one of those out for crit 14 to make up from the lack crit from the jewelry. The one after will be for people that have properly rolled jewelry and don't need the additional crit on the axe. The last one will be for VM gears as they have a 4th line.
This is a set of rolls if you're jewelry or other items do not have the proper rolls, this allows you to have a tad bit of extra crit. This is not the ideal rolls This is only if you need the additional crit.
Top Line:
9.3% damage to enraged targets
Bottom Lines:
Increase damage by 6.9% when attacking from behind
Increase Crit Factor by 14
Increase damage by 6%
This is the correct rolls for a non-vm weapon. These are the rolls you should have if you have a Dreadnaught or Slaughter weapon.
Top Line:
9.3% Damage to enraged targets
Bottom Lines:
9.3% Damage to enraged targets
6% Flat Damage
6.9% when attacking from behind.
This last set of rolls is for VM gears that have the additional 4th roll. For this section I'm going to leave the information that Bernkastel was nice enough to provide.
Update on this from Bernkastel, I'll just put in what he said.
14 CF is quite a weak roll for zerkers, at endgame CF it's weaker than 0.3 crit damage. Even if you definitely want to roll it, it should never be prioritized over enraged damage.
Another update on weapon rolls from Bernkastel(I messaged him about weapon rolls and he was super super helpful)
From my preliminary calculations, the best zerk weapon rolls:
Top: 9.3% enrage
Bottom: 9.3% enrage 6.9% back 6% damage 0.3x crit damage
It's not common knowledge but crit damage beats crit factor on zerk on every single binomial double crit chance glyph skill once your total crit factor passes a very low breakpoint... from memory between 200 and 250 total.
And here's his in-depth explanation:
Say I have 250 CF, using the Ketoth's crit formula I have 32.9% crit chance. If I have 264 CF, I have 34.45% crit chance.
This means with binomial glyph it is 0.5498% and 0.5703%.
I can either have 8x crit damage or 8.3x depending on roll.
With 8x and 264 CF my TS does this much damage in arbitrary units:
0.5703 * 7 + 1 = 4.992
With 8.3x and 250 CF:
0.5498 * 7.3 + 1 = 5.0135
Clearly at 250 CF, we have shown that crit damage > crit factor for any skill that scales binomial double crit chance. Since crit is diminishing stat we know that for any CF higher than 250 this shows crit damage is superior. I just picked 250 CF randomly as a proof of concept since it's pretty low.
Example:
Images coming soon!
Chest Rolls$2B
For the top line(also known as the skill line) You will always roll Increase Thunderstrike damage by 8%.
+3-+9
Decrease damage taken by 6%
Decrease damage from Enraged Monsters by 10%
Decrease damage from frontal attacks by 6.9%
(For VM gears)Raise Max hp by 6%
Example:
Images coming soon!
Gloves$2C
Increase Attack Speed by 2.25%
Increase Power by 5
Increase Crit Factor by 9
Example:
Images coming soon!
Boots$2D
Replenish 1% of total MP every 5 seconds
Increase Endurance by 4
Increase Movement Speed by 6%
Example:
Images coming soon!
Belt$2E
Increase Power by 3
Increase Crit Factor by 6
Example:
Images coming soon!
Etchings$3
For zerks the etchings are super easy. Keen on wep and gloves and grounded on chest and boots. Shoot for at least II’s on both. But if you’ve got the monies, go for III’s. However I would worry about perma etchings on schisma. If you even use etchings at all on schisma I would just use the temporary ones.
Innerwear$4
For Innerwear go crit. Innerwear is expensive so get what you can afford.
Jewelry$5
Jewelry is another important part of gear for Zerks. If your crit is still low or you're not running with a mystic I'd recommend Shadowgate Necklace, Shadowvain Earring/Ring and Corvette Ring/Earring. If you have a mystic or a high crit factor sub out the Corvette ring/earring for the Bloodvain Ring/Earring. The Rolls are also pretty simple. For super-crit go with the Shadowgate Necklace, Shadowvain Earring/Ring and the Mazevain Earring/Ring.
For Rings you want Crit factor 4/Power 4
For Earrings you Endurance 4/ Hp 4%
For Necklace you want 4 power. (I use crit, even though this is the lesser roll)
Crystals$6
Armor Crystals-4x Fine Hardy Niveot
Weapon Crystals- Fine Bitter Niveot, Fine Focused Niveot, Fine Savage Niveot, and Fine Carving/Pounding Niveot.
On the pounding/carving- When you’re crit is still low I’d recommend using carving. Once you’ve raised your crit to about +200 you can switch out carving for pounding and see if your dps goes up. There’s always been a bit of argument about it. I personally use pounding.
/
Accessory Crystals- 4x Keen Vyrsk
Glyphs$7
This is the glyph set that I use in all endgame content. This is a tentative glyph build as we can now use Evasive Roll outside of Intimidation. I removed the sped up flatten glyph for the Evasive Roll cd Reduction glyph. This build is subject to change.
http://www.essentialmana.com/glyph-calc/#be65:c156:d4:e3467:h0:s1:u12:v4:y0
Here is an alternate set from Killex.Axe on AV. This one sacrifices the Sanitive Glyph(hp consumption on overcharge) in favor of Dash cdr. This glyph was made during the Dawnfall patch, so e roll was not taken into consideration.
http://www.essentialmana.com/glyph-calc/#be65:c156:d34:e367:n0:s1:u12:v34
Another alternate set from Michigan on CH. This one sacrifices the extra damage for flatten and gives cdr reduction on Unbreakable. This glyph was made during the Dawnfall patch, so e roll was not taken into consideration.
http://www.essentialmana.com/glyph-calc/#be65:c156:d3:e367:i34:s1:u12:v0:x3
I’m not going to break down every single glyph and it’s options. Your glyphs should be designed around how you play your zerk. That being said I’ll tell you why I use the ones I do and you can either use my setup or tweak it to fit your playstyle. Also keep in mind that my glyph calc is assuming you have all your uncommon and rare master glyphs.
Thunder Strike-Friggin all of them. Thunderstrike is your most used ability. It is the skill that you’ll see those big crits with. Give it all the love.
Cyclone- This is your second most used skill, once again give it all of them. You want 1.4mil ticks of cyclone? This is how you get 1.4mil ticks of cyclone.
Vampiric Blow-Glyph of Power-There’s only one glyph for this skill and it’s useful. You’ll use this skill as a chain constantly so extra damage is a must.
Flurry of Blows-Glyph of Lingering- Flurry is our oh [filtered], gotta go fast skill. Increasing the duration is a must for more dps output.
Tenacity-Glyph of Infusion, Glyph of Restoration-These are the glyphs that are optional. If you feel you need to take points from somewhere this is where you take them from. With these two glyphs you receive 12% of your hp back on top of the mp received(which is super useful sometimes) and a 50% chance to restore 6% of your mp every second. More Mp=more skills. Like I said though, these are personal preference.
Evasive Smash-This is technically our biggest hitter. So you want to give it some love. Glyph every option on this one.
Raze-Glyph of Blaze-This speeds up the casting of Thunderstrike by 25% for a few seconds. This great because the quicker things are the more you can do. This skill will pretty much always be the opening skill of your rotation for this reason.
Flatten- Glyph of Power- This glyph increases skill damage by 30% respectively. If you want to squeeze some extra dps out and don't use the tenacity glyphs then this is the best replacement.
Evasive Roll- Glyph of Energy- This glyph reduces the cooldown of Evasive Roll by 25%. This could definitely be handy for iframe intensive dungeons.
Skills$8
I’m not going to go over every skill a berserker has, just the relevant ones. If you’d like to see an overview of all the berserker skills, then check out the berserker class page on the Tera website.
So what every person will tell you about zerks is that “They only use two skills”. That is entirely false. If you’re doing that, then you are wrong. The truth is our class revolves around two skills, which is completely different. TS and Cyclone are our bread and butter. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
So first thing, after a using a TS or Cyclone (I prefer ts) tap vampiric blow for a fully charged vampiric blow(minus the health steal feature). This is a must. For example if I crit 5 mil with my TS and also crit with the Vampiric, it’s usually around 1.5-2mil. That’s quite a bit of extra dps.
Second thing, use raze to speed up your ts. Next thing, your buffs. Zerks have 3 buffs. Flurry of Blows, Bloodlust, and Fiery Rage. Use Bloodlust when the boss is enraged or during burn phases, but don’t expect to use it often. It’s got a bit of a cd. However Flurry of blows and fiery rage have much shorter cd’s. Fiery Rage’s cd is shorter than flurry’s. However, I recommend that you always use flurry and Fiery rage together to get the most out of them. Buff management is a huge part of playing a zerk. A lot of the time it’s the difference between decent dps and sub-par dps. I honestly think it’s the most overlooked part of the class.
Last thing before I talk about rotations. Your axe block. USE IT. Our iframes suck atm. So don’t just iframe willy-nilly. If you can block it, block it. Save your iframes for the things you can’t. The other super important thing is block canceling. Block canceling is just using block to shorten the animation of the skill you just used. So basically after a ts hits, tap block. After cyclone, tap block. Block cancel allllll the things. The only time you don’t is after raze if you plan to use flatten directly after and after a ts/cylone that you’re planning on using vampiric right after.
Rotations$9
Rotations are a thing and not a thing with zerks. You more or less need to adapt to the boss you’re fighting. If you have a lot of one-shot iframe mechanics, you’ll tend to stay off of esmash, if there’s not then you’ll use e smash quite a bit to maneuver yourself around and get those huge crits(or tiny whites).
But its very heavily dependent on the fight you see yourself in.
I'd recommend this as the primary rotation.
TS -> Cyclone -> TS-> Raze -> Flatten -> TS
You can cast Flatten and still have the speed glyph active by the time you cast TS. The reason you cast flatten after raze is because TS wont be off cooldown by then.
So with that general idea in mind lets talk about some of the skills and why you need them.
Bread and Butter: Your Damage Skills$10
Thunderstrike- This is a charge ability, meaning, you press and hold the TS key until sufficiently charged and then release for the attack. When the charge bar is red and flashing that means you're overcharging. I want to say always overcharge but sometimes you just simply cant. Try to though because that's additional damage. Thunderstrike has 4 ticks of overcharge before the skill releases. This skill's casting speed is increased after raze as long as raze is glyphed for it. Vampiric blow also chains off of this ability.
Cyclone-Also called spin-to-win. This is a charge ability like TS. The main difference in the charging aspect is that it has 5 ticks of overcharge. This skill is a really good damage dealer and great for clearing out trash mobs.
Flatten- Flatten is a huge smack down with the flat part of the axe. It is made faster after using raze. (hence the rotation ts>raze>flatten>ts). Flatten is NOT a charge ability.
Evasive Smash- Our biggest damage dealer. I go into more detail below.
Iframes
Evasive Smash- This used to be your only true iframe. Now we have Evasive Roll as well. This has a 10 sec cooldown, so be careful when you use this. Also keep in mind that this skill shares a cd with Evasive Roll. Many many many times I’ve died because I used e smash just to need the iframe a couple seconds later. After you gain knowledge of a dungeon you’ll know when you can abuse e smash and when you can’t. TIP: I put my e smash on my mouse 3. E smash was always hard to use for me and that made it a million times easier for me. You may have another place you’d like to put it, but that’s my suggestion. Basically put it somewhere that is easy and quick to get to. You’ll thank me later. (More in movement skills)
Unbreakable- This skill is also sort of an iframe. It is an iframe, albeit, a very very short one. In the casting animation of the skill is the iframe. It has a super long cd and typical is just used in oh [filtered] moment. More often than not it’s not even used as an iframe. When the skill is used you cannot die for 8 seconds unless you’re hit with damage that is higher than your max hp. You can still however take damage but you will stop taking damage when your hp is 1. This skill can save your life. If your healer is super busy and you have a dot on you, you can use this to give your healer just a couple extra seconds to get to you.
Evasive Roll- This is the main iframe for zerks. With a 5 second cooldown it’s very nice. It’s the same roll as the other classes that have a roll. Can be glyphed for cd reduction.
Movement Skills
Everyone always talks about how zerks have no maneuverability. I disagree slighty. We only have one true skill for movement, but host quite a few skills that are super useful.
Dash- Temporarily increases movement speed. It’s not super super useful in pve, but it does have it’s uses. For example I pop dash when carpet comes up in FIHM, makes me a ddr master. It’s also useful if you have a boss that’s turning his back a lot. Every little bit helps.
Leaping Strike-This is our bread and butter movement skill. Every competent zerk uses the crap out of this skill. This skill allows you to leap a decent distance before slamming your axe down. If you learn to block cancel the animation on impact, you make this skill super useful to avoid things. Learn to use this skill…a lot.
Overwhelm- Overwhelm is our dash, you seem to glide along the ground quickly and end it with a slash. The slash bugs a lot and if you’re too close to a boss you can glitch and dash straight into the boss. That’s why I prefer leaping strike, but this is another super useful skill to master.
Lethal strike- This is a crap dps skill, but the slash in Lethal Strike propels you forward quite a bit. It’s my backup movement skill. It’s tough to block cancel sometimes and pretty ping dependent. But if all else fails remember you can use this.
Evasive Smash- This was covered briefly in iframes, but let go into more detail. When you’re charging a skill, say ts for example, you press the e smash button to interrupt the charging. When pressed the first time you have a roll. This is the iframe. This is also a great maneuverability skill. You can roll through a boss to put you right at the back. The second press of e smash delivers a huge slash. This, when it crits, puts out the highest dps of any of your skills. The more you charge the more damage you do by the way, so keep that in mind.
Self Buffs
Flurry of Blows- This temporarily increase the speed of your attacks and the charging speed. This skill is very similar to a Lancer’s Adrenaline Rush. However it does not affect cooldowns. I always use this with fiery rage to get the full benefit.
Fiery Rage- Temporarily sacrifice endurance to boost power. This increase your power quite a bit and allows you to get some bigger damage in. The endurance lost is neglible.
Bloodlust- This skill has a 2 min cooldown but is super nice. I save it for burn phases or when the boss is enraged because you will see a difference in dps. It gives a huge increase to power.
Consumables$11
Always use your basic consumables: Charms, nostrum, and crit power scrolls.
But if you want a little extra dps you can use Noctenium Infusions, Lamb Bulgogi, Bravery/Canephora potions, and if you’ve really got money to spare, Heaven’s Elixirs.
Dungeon Specific Tips$12
So far I don’t have any zerk specific tips. I’ll add them as I hear about them or find them out when I run the current dungeons. What I can provide is guides for the new dungeons. These are guides I’ve found and are not my own work.
Shadow Sanguinary NM/HM- https://sites.google.com/site/yoshasstuff/shadowsanguinaryguide
This is Yosha’s Guide all credit for the guide goes to him.
Demokron Factory NM/HM- http://www.essentialmana.com/vernos-laboratory/
This guide is from Essential Mana, I’d post specific credits but I didn’t see any on the page. All credit for this guide goes to them.
Abscess HM- http://teratoday.com/content/tera-guide/the-abscess-hard-mode-guide-yosha
All credit for this guide also goes to Yosha. (This guide was for the Lv. 60 Version, but mechanics should still be similar. I’ll update this to a 65 version when I find one)
Wonderholme-
This is a video guide for the Lv. 60 version of Wonderholme NM. So basically keep in mind some things could be slightly different. Just like the Abscess Guide, when I find a 65 version I’ll update it here. All credit for this guide goes to Elithus.
Manglemire-https://sites.google.com/site/yoshasstuff/manglemireguide
All credit goes to Yosha for this guide. Essential Mana also has a guide, but their's isn't complete as of yet.
Upcoming Buffs$13
Coming Soon™
Damage increase
•10%(according to ktera) buff to damage.
Fiery Rage
•Added effect to give you highest aggro for 5 seconds while under Intimidation stance.
This guide may not be the all encompassing best guide ever. This is really just a smattering of things I’ve learned in my period of playing. I am not the best zerk, and this guide is not the end-all-be-all guide for zerks. If something is wrong, or you feel something needs to be added/changed. Let me know. I’ll keep this updated over the patches.
Special thanks to Banim, Terminusix, Bernkastel, Killex.Axe and everyone else that's helped make this guide as thorough and correct as possible. I don't know everything.
Introduction
Hello! I’m Ulta, I’ve been playing Tera since cbt. I didn’t start as a zerk, but very shortly after I started playing I fell in love with my zerk and abandoned my archer (forever?). I’ve cleared every piece of content that’s came out in Tera’s lifespan and will continue to do so. I’m not the best zerk, there’s many many many better zerks than me. But I’ve got a good handle on it and should be able to help most up their game and perform a little better. I feel like zerks are being forgotten because every says we’re “low tier”. First thing about this guide. Screw those people. While yes, we will do less dps than brawlers and gunners and most other classes of EQUAL SKILL AND GEAR. But that’s the best thing about tera, not everyone has equal skill and equal gear. I’ve outdps’d brawlers and I’ve been outdps’d by archers. It’s all about skill and the work you put into your class.
Navigating the Guide
To Navigate the guide press Ctrl-F and type in the code for the section you want to see.
Gear- $1
Gear Rolls- $2
-Weapon Rolls- $2A
-Chest Rolls- $2b
-Glove Rolls- $2C
-Boot Rolls- $2D
-Belt Rolls- $2E
Etchings- $3
Innerwear- $4
Jewelry- $5
Crystals- $6
Glyphs- $7
Skills- $8
Rotations- $9
Skill Breakdowns- $10
Consumables- $11
Dungeon Tips- $12
Upcoming Buffs- $13
Why you’d pick up a Zerk
If you love huge crits then you’ll love zerks. If you love being a dps that can block, then you’ll love zerks. The class is a metal-wearing melee dps. Most of our skills are charge skills and if the character is built correctly can put out some insanely high crits. We’re not as mobile as most of the classes out there, but if certain skills are used correctly then movability isn’t too bad. (Also if you play a popo zerk, the animations are adorable, just saying)
Gear$1
Gear makes or breaks zerks, unfortunately with the current class balances and situations zerks are very gear and consumable heavy. Not so much for your casual players, but when you want to stay relevant in the tryhard runs I, personally, feel like zerks are more dependent on better gear and extra consumables to squeeze every little bit of dps out us.
So the current gear progression at 65 is such Dreadnaught>Slaughter/Starfall>Imperator(VM7).
So where the hell do I get that gear?
Dreadnaught can be purchased using Tyrant’s Bloodstones and Undershade tokens. The gear will drop in Kalivan’s Dreadnaught Normal Mode.
Slaughter is dropped in DFNM(Demokron Factory Normal mode) and can also be purchased with the Shadcore Tokens.
Starfall is the previous patch’s BiS, it is still relevant as of now. Being a Visionmaker set it does not drop anywhere. It can only be crafted. First you need the plans called Stellar Ancient Blueprint(just buy of the tb, they’re cheap) and then need Desolaurus Heartbeats, Ghostly Seals, Dreadnaught Spars, Sea Ash and Dreadnaught Ingots. Open your Dungeon Finder and look at what each instance drops to see what dungeons you need to run to get those Items. Another quick way is to obtain these items from pvp.
Imperator is the current BiS gear. It is also a Visionmaker set so it has to be crafted. The plans are dropped independently in the new dungeons. To craft it you’ll need Vengeance Versa, Vernal Bark, Self-Boiling Obkma, Rune of Secrets, and Colluva Ingot. (These names are placeholders, expect them to change.) Once again open up your dungeon finder to see which dungeons drop which mats. You can also obtain these Items from pvp battlegrounds.
Gear Rolls$2
Weapon Rolls$2A
I'm going to give 3 different sets of weapon rolls here. The first will be for the newly gearing character, primarily in dreadnaught, that can't afford the semi-enigmatic scrolls to properly roll the jewelry. Instead of the proper double damage to enrage rolls it subs one of those out for crit 14 to make up from the lack crit from the jewelry. The one after will be for people that have properly rolled jewelry and don't need the additional crit on the axe. The last one will be for VM gears as they have a 4th line.
This is a set of rolls if you're jewelry or other items do not have the proper rolls, this allows you to have a tad bit of extra crit. This is not the ideal rolls This is only if you need the additional crit.
Top Line:
9.3% damage to enraged targets
Bottom Lines:
Increase damage by 6.9% when attacking from behind
Increase Crit Factor by 14
Increase damage by 6%
This is the correct rolls for a non-vm weapon. These are the rolls you should have if you have a Dreadnaught or Slaughter weapon.
Top Line:
9.3% Damage to enraged targets
Bottom Lines:
9.3% Damage to enraged targets
6% Flat Damage
6.9% when attacking from behind.
This last set of rolls is for VM gears that have the additional 4th roll. For this section I'm going to leave the information that Bernkastel was nice enough to provide.
Update on this from Bernkastel, I'll just put in what he said.
14 CF is quite a weak roll for zerkers, at endgame CF it's weaker than 0.3 crit damage. Even if you definitely want to roll it, it should never be prioritized over enraged damage.
Another update on weapon rolls from Bernkastel(I messaged him about weapon rolls and he was super super helpful)
From my preliminary calculations, the best zerk weapon rolls:
Top: 9.3% enrage
Bottom: 9.3% enrage 6.9% back 6% damage 0.3x crit damage
It's not common knowledge but crit damage beats crit factor on zerk on every single binomial double crit chance glyph skill once your total crit factor passes a very low breakpoint... from memory between 200 and 250 total.
And here's his in-depth explanation:
Say I have 250 CF, using the Ketoth's crit formula I have 32.9% crit chance. If I have 264 CF, I have 34.45% crit chance.
This means with binomial glyph it is 0.5498% and 0.5703%.
I can either have 8x crit damage or 8.3x depending on roll.
With 8x and 264 CF my TS does this much damage in arbitrary units:
0.5703 * 7 + 1 = 4.992
With 8.3x and 250 CF:
0.5498 * 7.3 + 1 = 5.0135
Clearly at 250 CF, we have shown that crit damage > crit factor for any skill that scales binomial double crit chance. Since crit is diminishing stat we know that for any CF higher than 250 this shows crit damage is superior. I just picked 250 CF randomly as a proof of concept since it's pretty low.
Example:
Images coming soon!
Chest Rolls$2B
For the top line(also known as the skill line) You will always roll Increase Thunderstrike damage by 8%.
+3-+9
Decrease damage taken by 6%
Decrease damage from Enraged Monsters by 10%
Decrease damage from frontal attacks by 6.9%
(For VM gears)Raise Max hp by 6%
Example:
Images coming soon!
Gloves$2C
Increase Attack Speed by 2.25%
Increase Power by 5
Increase Crit Factor by 9
Example:
Images coming soon!
Boots$2D
Replenish 1% of total MP every 5 seconds
Increase Endurance by 4
Increase Movement Speed by 6%
Example:
Images coming soon!
Belt$2E
Increase Power by 3
Increase Crit Factor by 6
Example:
Images coming soon!
Etchings$3
For zerks the etchings are super easy. Keen on wep and gloves and grounded on chest and boots. Shoot for at least II’s on both. But if you’ve got the monies, go for III’s. However I would worry about perma etchings on schisma. If you even use etchings at all on schisma I would just use the temporary ones.
Innerwear$4
For Innerwear go crit. Innerwear is expensive so get what you can afford.
Jewelry$5
Jewelry is another important part of gear for Zerks. If your crit is still low or you're not running with a mystic I'd recommend Shadowgate Necklace, Shadowvain Earring/Ring and Corvette Ring/Earring. If you have a mystic or a high crit factor sub out the Corvette ring/earring for the Bloodvain Ring/Earring. The Rolls are also pretty simple. For super-crit go with the Shadowgate Necklace, Shadowvain Earring/Ring and the Mazevain Earring/Ring.
For Rings you want Crit factor 4/Power 4
For Earrings you Endurance 4/ Hp 4%
For Necklace you want 4 power. (I use crit, even though this is the lesser roll)
Crystals$6
Armor Crystals-4x Fine Hardy Niveot
Weapon Crystals- Fine Bitter Niveot, Fine Focused Niveot, Fine Savage Niveot, and Fine Carving/Pounding Niveot.
On the pounding/carving- When you’re crit is still low I’d recommend using carving. Once you’ve raised your crit to about +200 you can switch out carving for pounding and see if your dps goes up. There’s always been a bit of argument about it. I personally use pounding.
/Accessory Crystals- 4x Keen Vyrsk
Glyphs$7
This is the glyph set that I use in all endgame content. This is a tentative glyph build as we can now use Evasive Roll outside of Intimidation. I removed the sped up flatten glyph for the Evasive Roll cd Reduction glyph. This build is subject to change.
http://www.essentialmana.com/glyph-calc/#be65:c156:d4:e3467:h0:s1:u12:v4:y0
Here is an alternate set from Killex.Axe on AV. This one sacrifices the Sanitive Glyph(hp consumption on overcharge) in favor of Dash cdr. This glyph was made during the Dawnfall patch, so e roll was not taken into consideration.
http://www.essentialmana.com/glyph-calc/#be65:c156:d34:e367:n0:s1:u12:v34
Another alternate set from Michigan on CH. This one sacrifices the extra damage for flatten and gives cdr reduction on Unbreakable. This glyph was made during the Dawnfall patch, so e roll was not taken into consideration.
http://www.essentialmana.com/glyph-calc/#be65:c156:d3:e367:i34:s1:u12:v0:x3
I’m not going to break down every single glyph and it’s options. Your glyphs should be designed around how you play your zerk. That being said I’ll tell you why I use the ones I do and you can either use my setup or tweak it to fit your playstyle. Also keep in mind that my glyph calc is assuming you have all your uncommon and rare master glyphs.
Thunder Strike-Friggin all of them. Thunderstrike is your most used ability. It is the skill that you’ll see those big crits with. Give it all the love.Cyclone- This is your second most used skill, once again give it all of them. You want 1.4mil ticks of cyclone? This is how you get 1.4mil ticks of cyclone.Vampiric Blow-Glyph of Power-There’s only one glyph for this skill and it’s useful. You’ll use this skill as a chain constantly so extra damage is a must.Flurry of Blows-Glyph of Lingering- Flurry is our oh [filtered], gotta go fast skill. Increasing the duration is a must for more dps output.Tenacity-Glyph of Infusion, Glyph of Restoration-These are the glyphs that are optional. If you feel you need to take points from somewhere this is where you take them from. With these two glyphs you receive 12% of your hp back on top of the mp received(which is super useful sometimes) and a 50% chance to restore 6% of your mp every second. More Mp=more skills. Like I said though, these are personal preference.Evasive Smash-This is technically our biggest hitter. So you want to give it some love. Glyph every option on this one.Raze-Glyph of Blaze-This speeds up the casting of Thunderstrike by 25% for a few seconds. This great because the quicker things are the more you can do. This skill will pretty much always be the opening skill of your rotation for this reason.Flatten- Glyph of Power- This glyph increases skill damage by 30% respectively. If you want to squeeze some extra dps out and don't use the tenacity glyphs then this is the best replacement.Evasive Roll- Glyph of Energy- This glyph reduces the cooldown of Evasive Roll by 25%. This could definitely be handy for iframe intensive dungeons.Skills$8
I’m not going to go over every skill a berserker has, just the relevant ones. If you’d like to see an overview of all the berserker skills, then check out the berserker class page on the Tera website.
So what every person will tell you about zerks is that “They only use two skills”. That is entirely false. If you’re doing that, then you are wrong. The truth is our class revolves around two skills, which is completely different. TS and Cyclone are our bread and butter. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
So first thing, after a using a TS or Cyclone (I prefer ts) tap vampiric blow for a fully charged vampiric blow(minus the health steal feature). This is a must. For example if I crit 5 mil with my TS and also crit with the Vampiric, it’s usually around 1.5-2mil. That’s quite a bit of extra dps.
Second thing, use raze to speed up your ts. Next thing, your buffs. Zerks have 3 buffs. Flurry of Blows, Bloodlust, and Fiery Rage. Use Bloodlust when the boss is enraged or during burn phases, but don’t expect to use it often. It’s got a bit of a cd. However Flurry of blows and fiery rage have much shorter cd’s. Fiery Rage’s cd is shorter than flurry’s. However, I recommend that you always use flurry and Fiery rage together to get the most out of them. Buff management is a huge part of playing a zerk. A lot of the time it’s the difference between decent dps and sub-par dps. I honestly think it’s the most overlooked part of the class.
Last thing before I talk about rotations. Your axe block. USE IT. Our iframes suck atm. So don’t just iframe willy-nilly. If you can block it, block it. Save your iframes for the things you can’t. The other super important thing is block canceling. Block canceling is just using block to shorten the animation of the skill you just used. So basically after a ts hits, tap block. After cyclone, tap block. Block cancel allllll the things. The only time you don’t is after raze if you plan to use flatten directly after and after a ts/cylone that you’re planning on using vampiric right after.
Rotations$9
Rotations are a thing and not a thing with zerks. You more or less need to adapt to the boss you’re fighting. If you have a lot of one-shot iframe mechanics, you’ll tend to stay off of esmash, if there’s not then you’ll use e smash quite a bit to maneuver yourself around and get those huge crits(or tiny whites).
But its very heavily dependent on the fight you see yourself in.
I'd recommend this as the primary rotation.
TS -> Cyclone -> TS-> Raze -> Flatten -> TS
You can cast Flatten and still have the speed glyph active by the time you cast TS. The reason you cast flatten after raze is because TS wont be off cooldown by then.
So with that general idea in mind lets talk about some of the skills and why you need them.
Bread and Butter: Your Damage Skills$10
Thunderstrike- This is a charge ability, meaning, you press and hold the TS key until sufficiently charged and then release for the attack. When the charge bar is red and flashing that means you're overcharging. I want to say always overcharge but sometimes you just simply cant. Try to though because that's additional damage. Thunderstrike has 4 ticks of overcharge before the skill releases. This skill's casting speed is increased after raze as long as raze is glyphed for it. Vampiric blow also chains off of this ability.Cyclone-Also called spin-to-win. This is a charge ability like TS. The main difference in the charging aspect is that it has 5 ticks of overcharge. This skill is a really good damage dealer and great for clearing out trash mobs.Flatten- Flatten is a huge smack down with the flat part of the axe. It is made faster after using raze. (hence the rotation ts>raze>flatten>ts). Flatten is NOT a charge ability.Evasive Smash- Our biggest damage dealer. I go into more detail below.Iframes
Evasive Smash- This used to be your only true iframe. Now we have Evasive Roll as well. This has a 10 sec cooldown, so be careful when you use this. Also keep in mind that this skill shares a cd with Evasive Roll. Many many many times I’ve died because I used e smash just to need the iframe a couple seconds later. After you gain knowledge of a dungeon you’ll know when you can abuse e smash and when you can’t. TIP: I put my e smash on my mouse 3. E smash was always hard to use for me and that made it a million times easier for me. You may have another place you’d like to put it, but that’s my suggestion. Basically put it somewhere that is easy and quick to get to. You’ll thank me later. (More in movement skills)Unbreakable- This skill is also sort of an iframe. It is an iframe, albeit, a very very short one. In the casting animation of the skill is the iframe. It has a super long cd and typical is just used in oh [filtered] moment. More often than not it’s not even used as an iframe. When the skill is used you cannot die for 8 seconds unless you’re hit with damage that is higher than your max hp. You can still however take damage but you will stop taking damage when your hp is 1. This skill can save your life. If your healer is super busy and you have a dot on you, you can use this to give your healer just a couple extra seconds to get to you.Evasive Roll- This is the main iframe for zerks. With a 5 second cooldown it’s very nice. It’s the same roll as the other classes that have a roll. Can be glyphed for cd reduction.Movement Skills
Everyone always talks about how zerks have no maneuverability. I disagree slighty. We only have one true skill for movement, but host quite a few skills that are super useful.
Dash- Temporarily increases movement speed. It’s not super super useful in pve, but it does have it’s uses. For example I pop dash when carpet comes up in FIHM, makes me a ddr master. It’s also useful if you have a boss that’s turning his back a lot. Every little bit helps.Leaping Strike-This is our bread and butter movement skill. Every competent zerk uses the crap out of this skill. This skill allows you to leap a decent distance before slamming your axe down. If you learn to block cancel the animation on impact, you make this skill super useful to avoid things. Learn to use this skill…a lot.Overwhelm- Overwhelm is our dash, you seem to glide along the ground quickly and end it with a slash. The slash bugs a lot and if you’re too close to a boss you can glitch and dash straight into the boss. That’s why I prefer leaping strike, but this is another super useful skill to master.Lethal strike- This is a crap dps skill, but the slash in Lethal Strike propels you forward quite a bit. It’s my backup movement skill. It’s tough to block cancel sometimes and pretty ping dependent. But if all else fails remember you can use this.Evasive Smash- This was covered briefly in iframes, but let go into more detail. When you’re charging a skill, say ts for example, you press the e smash button to interrupt the charging. When pressed the first time you have a roll. This is the iframe. This is also a great maneuverability skill. You can roll through a boss to put you right at the back. The second press of e smash delivers a huge slash. This, when it crits, puts out the highest dps of any of your skills. The more you charge the more damage you do by the way, so keep that in mind.Self Buffs
Flurry of Blows- This temporarily increase the speed of your attacks and the charging speed. This skill is very similar to a Lancer’s Adrenaline Rush. However it does not affect cooldowns. I always use this with fiery rage to get the full benefit.Fiery Rage- Temporarily sacrifice endurance to boost power. This increase your power quite a bit and allows you to get some bigger damage in. The endurance lost is neglible.Bloodlust- This skill has a 2 min cooldown but is super nice. I save it for burn phases or when the boss is enraged because you will see a difference in dps. It gives a huge increase to power.
Consumables$11
Always use your basic consumables: Charms, nostrum, and crit power scrolls.
But if you want a little extra dps you can use Noctenium Infusions, Lamb Bulgogi, Bravery/Canephora potions, and if you’ve really got money to spare, Heaven’s Elixirs.
Dungeon Specific Tips$12
So far I don’t have any zerk specific tips. I’ll add them as I hear about them or find them out when I run the current dungeons. What I can provide is guides for the new dungeons. These are guides I’ve found and are not my own work.
Shadow Sanguinary NM/HM- https://sites.google.com/site/yoshasstuff/shadowsanguinaryguide
This is Yosha’s Guide all credit for the guide goes to him.
Demokron Factory NM/HM- http://www.essentialmana.com/vernos-laboratory/
This guide is from Essential Mana, I’d post specific credits but I didn’t see any on the page. All credit for this guide goes to them.
Abscess HM- http://teratoday.com/content/tera-guide/the-abscess-hard-mode-guide-yosha
All credit for this guide also goes to Yosha. (This guide was for the Lv. 60 Version, but mechanics should still be similar. I’ll update this to a 65 version when I find one)
Wonderholme-
This is a video guide for the Lv. 60 version of Wonderholme NM. So basically keep in mind some things could be slightly different. Just like the Abscess Guide, when I find a 65 version I’ll update it here. All credit for this guide goes to Elithus.
Manglemire-https://sites.google.com/site/yoshasstuff/manglemireguide
All credit goes to Yosha for this guide. Essential Mana also has a guide, but their's isn't complete as of yet.
Upcoming Buffs$13
Coming Soon™
Damage increase
•10%(according to ktera) buff to damage.
Fiery Rage
•Added effect to give you highest aggro for 5 seconds while under Intimidation stance.
This guide may not be the all encompassing best guide ever. This is really just a smattering of things I’ve learned in my period of playing. I am not the best zerk, and this guide is not the end-all-be-all guide for zerks. If something is wrong, or you feel something needs to be added/changed. Let me know. I’ll keep this updated over the patches.
Special thanks to Banim, Terminusix, Bernkastel, Killex.Axe and everyone else that's helped make this guide as thorough and correct as possible. I don't know everything.
10
Comments
Recently I saw a video by dtmaik(Soaria on EU) here. He's using intimidation stance to dps and showing some really good numbers. I like the idea and figured I'd make a little subsection on it.
Keep in mind that you probably shouldn't use this in IMS or pug groups as there's a lot of aggro generation. Which could end up leading to more problems than benefits. But if you've got a solid group and a good tank it might be fun to play with. Key benefit I'm seeing from this is for bosses that are pretty mobile.
Rotation
I looked into different rotations, but found dtmaik's to be the smoothest. The one he's using is..
TS>Punishing Strike x2>Raze>Flatten>TS (with vampiric's, bloodlust, and flurry ofc)
On low ping this is a really smooth rotation, higher ping may see some issues with punishing strike.
Also the space between the two hits of punishing strike can be canceled if you have a low ping (sub 100ms) by doing the first strike block cancelling and quickly pressing again. It's a very fast motion and takes a tad of practice. I wasn't even able to do it with a ping spike to ~250ms.
Gear Rolls
I don't see any need to change any rolls, etchings, etc.
Possibly energetic etchings or a hybrid in the future. But more testing needs to be done to see if this is even a viable idea.
Glyphs
I do not have dtmaik's glyphs, but after playing with the setup for a couple of days I've come up with this..
Glyphs
It may not be perfect and I'm sure can be improved on, but it's working pretty well for me as of now.
Conclusion
Probably not viable for every fight, but variety is what makes things fun imho. I'd love more feedback and info on this method so if you have some let me know and I'll add it to this. I dunno who came up with the dstance dps technique, but I've seen most of it and gathered most of the info from dtmaik so I'm gonna give him credit for this.
19Apr2016
•Fixed the rotation portion of the guide
•Fixed the gear roll section
•Removed crystal images(gonna try to readd at a later date)
•Added a more in-depth explanation of the TS and Cyclone Skill
20Apr2016
•Added tips for FIHM
•Attempted to clean up some formatting things.
•Updated my glphcalc and added Killex's and Michigan's
02May2016
•Added Bernkastel's Math on weapon rolls.
03May2016
•Updated Weapon Roll Section. Pic to come soon!
04May2016
•Moved Guide to the New Forums(in class, gonna make it prettier after class.)
06May2016
•Added weapon Pic
•Added quick find function
•Added the bit about galleon jewelry
•Combined all guide posts into one post because Geletron increased char count.
•Added alot of misc icons
16May2016
•Began the update overhaul for the Secrets and Shadows Update
6July2016
•Added Yosha's Manglemire Guide under dungeon tips
•Added dates for upcoming buffs
8August2016
•Added "Intimidation Stance DPS" subsection.
Thank you! ~
another thing is if you're running power brooch on your zerker, dont stack bloodlust, fiery rage and power brooch together, instead use either bloodlust or power brooch with fiery rage and flurry. NEVER use bloodlust or power brooch without flurry of blows
You also say that we should pop fiery and flurry together. this is also wrong. Without any cdr rolls, your fiery rage will have a 3s downtime if you use it on cd, compared to having to wait 15s unbuffed just so you can pop it together with flurry, only to have it last twice as long as flurry either way.
As for your glyphs, i cant really say if anything is wrong or correct, however, i dont really like glyphing flatten, or vampiric. The vampiric glyph because its really not that big of a dps increase, and Flatten because its not a skill you should be using that often, if at all
http://www.essentialmana.com/glyph-calc/#be65:c156:e3467:p2:s1:u12:v234 This is my personal glyph build. I juggle between staggering strike and raze to speed up my TS, instead of using flatten. The CDR glyph on Raze makes it so it goes off cd fast enough to let you use sped up thunder strikes even more.
Only times i switch out my glyph build is when i need the extra movement, or when SS isnt used cus i have to save it. Only then do i switch it out for Dash CDR. These dungeons can be stuff like Thalweg in ABHM, Yana TSHM etc. Places where i need my stun and cant waste it on a sped up TS
I'll give you that Flatten is obviously not high priority and when the target moves around or turns around too much there's no time to cast it so you would go for a TS anyway while chasing the boss's back, so depending on the fight it certainly might be better to focus more on things that are gonna allow TS to charge and go off faster.
Yeh, honestly its all about playstyle. I'm more TS focused, so my rotation is based around using TS on cd, with glyphs to increase charge speed, hence why the raze cd glyph, i literally cant play without it.
I did use another glyph page earlier which focused more on not using cyclone at all, so i unglyphed it for flatten, and it surprisingly was not bad.
But really, theres no correct way to play zerker, its a prefered way. The other things i pointed out however is more correct
Thanks for the feedback!