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Comments
When mobbing while levelling, due to OP avatar weapons, warrior will arguably be faster and easier to play (zerk is very slow early on and needs heals to stay at maximum damage due to overcharge).
But I won't say you should/shouldn't continue your zerk. Choose what you feel is more comfortable for you. Berserkers are one of the least comfortable classes for most learning people (slayer and warrior are ironically in the list too)
I kinda feel the opposite. While leveling Zerk everything just melts with spinning attack; mobbing is very easy questing. ON warrior it is very annoying while questing/leveling to get stuff to bunch together, especially since the skills were moved around and some of the very limited warrior AOE skills were moved to higher levels.
Though at endgame, i find warrior much easier than zerk, due to things like you say...overcharge damage, less mobility, less iFrames(?), etc.
I like zerker, and its much more fun to level than it used to be now that MP decay is gone. MP decay on Zerk and Slayer was such an annoying "feature".
Berserkers at the lower levels are very..very slow. Your bread and butter is using thunderstrike,cyclone, and flatten. But you will not really get that till a bit later. But for now you are going to be very clunky heavy and probably if not an elin.
miss alot of your thunderstrike attacks and cyclones because the boss decides he's going to move just two feet out away from you or leap across the room or a mob runs past you.
Now with the new patch they've changed it so alot more skills become available at lower levels. But back in the old days zerkers only had one iframe and you wouldn't get that one iframe till max level. making it so you had to rely on blocking, u
Or using lethal strike,leaping strike and so on for movement.
casting dash or using leaping strike to get from place to place. to do damage or hit your target.
In pve you were forced to be careful and time well or miss put on doing damage. in PvP If you were fighting ranged good luck catching up to them because you only have 3 skills for catching up and one of those again wasn't available till max level.
Today that's not the case. Zerker is alot faster then what it used it to be. It's got many different way to catch players/bosses and do damage.
For the most part lower levels are not fun till they get dash at around level 35 and unlock most of the skills they will need like fiery rage and unchained anger. Berserker at the lower levels 1-16 you will mostly be focusing on whacking things with your axe to build Mana then charging thunderstrike.
or cyclone unable to move while doing this and unable to fully overcharge it because if you full charge right now most likely you'll kill yourself because you do not yet have sanatative as a glyph and you'll be eating your hps too quickly.
Now, after leaving the island you'll hit around level 16 you'll get the ability after leveling your skill to slowly instead of staying in place get the ability to very very slowly move at enemies charging your axe behind you using cyclone but not yet thunderstrike so you still really can't move that fast yet.
After all that axe is damn heavy you're not used to it yet it's gonna take time to get used to swinging something like that around.
Anyways after 16 at level 20 you'll get vampric which you can follow up with after thunderstrike or cyclone doing damage and healing yourself as well as you'll now be able to move and cast thunderstrikw. you'll open up some more glyphs allowing you to do some more things but mostly you'll still be moving very slowly.
At level 24 and 26 you'll get flatten,fiery rage and have mocking shout. Congratulations you can now not be knocked down thanks to mocking shout for 8 seconds.
You can now do 2x the damage with double attack speed for a slight bit with the added boost given from fiery rage. As well as you can now knock enemies down with flatten and charge free thunderstrikes. or if you're aware of it overcharge cyclone for 2 or 1 overcharge tick to pick up all the mobs off the ground and start whacking them to hit them with vampric Level 25-30. you'll get dash and have more ways to get Mana with unchained anger and and you'll have tenacity. You will also now be able to move more quickly.
without having to rely on block to safe you from everything. You will also get more glyph points. 30-36 you'll unlock leaping strike, and lethal.
34-40 more glyphs staggering strike unlocked you can now stun enemies you'll be moving a little bit faster now. 46 fearsome shout it's fun to scare enemies and send them running everywhere while you cut them down.( Mostly used for PvP.)
Here's where the game changes alot for berserker. level 52 bloodlust need I say more? Guranted crits and another skill to boost your attacks attack speed and how fast you can cast your skills.
Level 52-60 inescapable doom and finally evasive smash you have a majority of your glyphs unlocked and now you're alot faster then the old days but you are not quite finished.
Level 60-65 raze unlocked you can now animation cancel that with flatten or raze into thunder strike your choice.
You now have tackle unlocked another gap closer that knocks down targets. It's helpful and does if you can land it. Level 63 you'll get overwhelm congratulations another gap closer that closes in on enemies with 15m range that staggers when hit good
for catching bosses that move far out of range or players.
Once you hit 65 You unlock dstance. You can now swap to defensive stance and have completed leveling your zerker.
Now, it's Time to start grinding for your misery set. You may feel your dps is pretty low ATM that's normal fairly normal for each class besides c
Valkyries. Berserker is the type of class that you need to have gear with to do alot of things. You will be unhappy with your damage for a bit while farming celestial arena dailies and doing everything else to get your gear.
But Once you have your misery set and you reroll everything properly you'll be alot happier then what you were.
A good misery zerker whose rolled correctly has the right glyph and does their rotation perfectly can get to a maximum of about 1.2 million or 1.4, million without slaying a decent one will be around 800k-980k or higher and a unskilled one below that number.
To be a good zerker for pve you will need to study your bosses know their patterns and mechanics. You will need to know when to dodge and how to dodge. You cannot rely on block anymore to keep you safe from damage.As in most hardmode dungeons boss attacks cannot be blocked .
.
Some bosses you may be able to take 1 or 2 hits with block before you die but mostly you will need to learn
how to dodge or avoid attacks that will now usually one shot you if directly hit.
The goal of a zerker is fairly simple. Your goal is to stay behind the boss as much as you can and deal damage to them by overcharging your attacks and getting as many crits as possible. You should be stacking crit rate on your armor and have about to above 250+ with a a bit of power behind that or your crits damage will be lessened.
If you haven't figured it out by now The berserkers damage does not come from fast combos but slow hard hitting attacks that require good positioning and timing to land consistenly Everytime you see white damage pop up that isn't a blood spatter or Everytime you miss a attack because a boss moved is damage you're missing out on. What you want to see is a blood spatter showing up with numbers reading 12,798,014 or higher when you fully overcharge and hit the enemy from behind. The highest crit I've ever had as a zerker in +12 misery gear with everything buffed and put on correctly doing my rotation is 16million-19 million. You won't see numbers like that pop up.often mostly it will be 9mil-16mil but when you see a crit 20 million will tell you now it feels good. With a powerful brooch and not wearing something stupid (like my cleanse brooch or outdated quickcarve although cleanse can be handy for fixing mistakes you should not be relying on this to save you.)
Those crits become more consistent. If you are a hard worker and get full dw and +15 it or even better full obliterator those crits will appear alot more and you can easily reach damages of around 2.4 mil-3.4mil . Given. A slaying build that damage becomes just so much higher I mentioned that at normal misery gear you can reach a Max of 1.2 mil equip a Slayer build and Slayer glyphs everything rolled perfectly and you can if you're good achieve a damage above 1.2 mil.
But I digress, while zerkers have extremely high damage potential.. how it is done is put in the hands of the players.. and rng. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see Valkyries not have to work hard for their crits or damage while we berserkers busy our asses off to stay behind dodging everything and try not to die to get the highest damage out put and still not reach that potential.. because rng crits are rng.and that's what your damage will be based off rng crits and how effectively you manage to get behind and stay behind your enemy to lay the beat down on them. PvP Is a completely different beast and needs a longer explanation but basically how it comes down to how well you know your class and what your skills do how to use them how to position how to fake people out and play mindgames.