Difference between revisions of "Category:Berserkers"

Prone to bloodlust? Have a passion for death and dismemberment? You might have what it takes to succeed in the bloody and brutal world of Berserkers! Berserkers are powerful fighters whose ferocity and disregard for their own safety make them truly devastating and almost impervious to damage under the right circumstances. They thrive in tumultuous combat, leading a group and battling on the front lines. Traditionally they wear very little armor, in order to maximize their destructive potential. Once they attain level 51, Berserkers do not gain new class skills in the usual manner, instead selecting from a list of Rites at specific sublevels. Berserkers NEVER learn any magic spells except homeshift, which is good because they never gain mana. The PRIME REQUISITES of berserkers is STRENGTH. They are only available to warriors, rogues and old rangers via the REMORT command.

Abbreviation: Bzk.

Prime Requisite: Strength.

Berserkers in General

Berserkers are a pure melee class; they never gain mana or learn any spells. At hero they get comparable hp to a warrior (maybe slightly more); at lord, quite a bit more. They almost always run in hit gear. They hit considerably better when tanking the mob than without, and thus serve as good tanks and rescuers. Their lack of spells means that they rely on their groupmates more than usual. They use blunt weapons to hit.

Berserker Creation

Berserkers are only creatable via the remort command. See the remort classes page for options and at what level. Good creatable races include orc (decent hp and damage, low tnl), ogre (quite a bit more hp and damage, a bit more tnl) and giant (most hp, damage, and tnl), gargoyles (for golem option - usually people remort golem first before bzk).

Berserkers at Lowmort Tier

Training

Once remorted, you should have enough practice points to practice all your attributes to maximum. Should you not have enough, for odd reasons, Constitution is the most important attribute (for HP gains), since Intelligence is generally not a factor, and neither is Wisdom - there is a very small amount of skills to be practiced over Lomort tier, and virtually none once you Hero, so measly practice point gains and slow learning due to low intelligence are not an issue.

Of note is that berserkers do not get Magic Lore; so they are consigned to an eternity of "very long" and "for a while" after Lowmort level 25. See Magic Lore for a guide to the duration ranges of the various descriptors.

Practicing

Practice all skills as they become available, as a majority is useful. Some less immediately useful ones are Kick, Toss (Toss has a long lag if failed) or Butcher, but since there is only so few of them you might as well practice all.

Worshipping

Werredan with the hp and xp benefits is a good choice, as with any warrior class - lack if mana gains is not an issue for mana-less berserkers, and the experience bonus is always nice. Worshiping other deities makes little practical sense.

Fighting

Soloing:

Lowmort is mostly a solo affair. With large HP gains and early access to skills such as Third Attack and Blunt Weaponry, a berserker will always solo in hit-gear, pausing only for so long to replenish HP or spells. Remember to upgrade gear every 10 levels or so, and complete all Diplomatic Corps quests if you have not completed them in your previous incarnation.

Tanking:

Berserkers at these levels will likely have more HP than groupies, so role of a tank is simple due to early access to Dodge and Rescue. Grouping a healer can be effective since a lack of AC gear will mean more damage taken over runs.

Hitting:

Similar to soloing, but with less risk, a berserker can easily dish out appropriate amounts of damage behind a tank clad in AC gear, as well as serve as a backup tank. Unfortunately lowmort groups are rare, so it's not often an opportunity to sponge like this will present itself.

Berserker Prestige Options

There are no prestige options for berserkers at this time.

Berserkers at Hero Tier

Training

Train your constitution first and foremost in order to maximize the HP gains. Intelligence is not relevant due to no mana gains and a miniscule amount of skills to be practiced, and Wisdom is also not relevant due to - again, only a few skills to be practiced. However, do train all attributes once you have the opportunity, if only to provide a buffer for stat loses at post Hero 101, as well as a potential pool of practice points for buying HP directly, if such a practice is interesting to you.

Practicing

Unlike most classes - berserkers do not get spells. At hero 1 they acquire rites. Every 100 levels they are allowed to pick one rite to learn. Some rites are only functional when the berserker's AC rating are under a certain level (-750 max for heros and -1250 for lords). The options are:

∗ These six rites are pre-requisites for lord rites (there are six lord rites).

Devoting

It is not uncommon for fighter classes to devote Werredan:

    Str  Int  Wis  Dex  Con  
    +1   -1    0   -1   +1

Remember that post 101 your (potential) DC insignia will fade, and to gain a full bonus to constitution (+4 over maximum trainable) you will likely need to wear appropriate leveling gear.

Fighting

Soloing: Berserkers are very solo-able. Early on the rite Bloodlust is very handy to maintain the HP while running in full hit gear. Unless your HPs can handle swarms stick to non-aggie areas.

Tanking: Tanking at hero with a berserker is fairly simple and straight forward. The first two rites you should take are resist pain and bloodlust. Resist pain will allow you to fight for the first 2-3 rounds of combat without taking any noticeable damage. Since berserkers can regain health via the bloodlust rite, their dependence on healing is less than that of other tanks. The best hitters to bring when tanking at hero would be archers and casters. This is because casters and archers can stop most if not all of their damage at any given time allowing the berserker a far greater chance of landing the killing blow and gaining health through bloodlust.

Grouporder yourself front, as the top hitting slot tends to get more terminal blows. If you don't have an attentive archer/caster who times their damage to give you the terms, then lowhero warriors can be good because they are fairly weak yet still do consistent damage.

Enchanted hitgear is the way to go, because you want to do enough damage to get the terms. A secondary hitset with lower ac is helpful so that you can keep your ac below -750 for bloodlust when your frenzy falls mid-combat (and a good alias to swap between sets).

Hitting:

For pre-250, two regular very good edged damage weapons will outperform a blunt doublehit weapon. After 250, a blunt double-hit weapon is best. Sceptre Of Igecsoz is a good fodderable weapon.

Once you get enough hp, using Final Fury can be fun. For final fury to work, you need to have less than 10% of your max hp. Scar often to keep your hp below 10%.

Berserkers at Lord Tier

Lord Rites

Lord Play in General

The most important rites to get are ignore pain, savage strength and mutilation, so save at least these many (plus one for might if you haven't got it yet). The rest are much less important.

Berzerkers receive a lot of hp at lord and usually serve to rescue groupmembers. Using the ignore pain rite, they take very little damage. They are very useful in tanking gear rooms for this reason. The benefits of ignore pain degrade after about three rounds, so it is standard to rescue the bzk after three arounds. For this reason, they cannot serve as the main tank in the group; you need at least one other tank.

Some tips

Berserker at lord can't eulogy without mana, so consider whether there are enough players on-line to thren if you are going to an area that is difficult to CR.

It's quite fun at lord to use final fury (FF) under the watchful eye of a good healer, because the extra damage is sexy. The bzk needs to keep hp under 10% in order for FF to kick in. It is polite to inform the healers that you are going for FF so that they don't waste mana healing you while you are trying to get your hp to 10%.

Berserkers tank missile damage well, so leaders will tell groupmates not to disarm bow mobs when bzk are in the group to tank it.

Since you can use config +savespell for spell effects from Mutilation, you could scar until achieving Werrebocler, get healed back to full as fast as possible, and then get spelled with the rest of the group. This would help if a Berserker were to be sent in to a plane as the first tank. Normally planeshift lag is too long, and the Berserker would suffer quite a bit after Ignore Pain degrades and before any other tank is out of lag to rescue them.

Berserker Remort Options

There are no remort class options for berserkers. Good remort races are troll, minotaur and golem.

"Bad Rites"

Rites are overdue for a rehaul, as many changes to the mud have rendered some rites obsolete. There are a number of rites which have no effect, or negative effect, and should be avoided:

Prime Strike & Exemplary Strike: These rites mimic grouporder functionality, but cannot be controlled or turned off, and therefore reduce damage output in many situations.

Raging Rush: This rite doesn't do anything important; it doubles the standing regeneration rate, which about 20-30 hp per tick.

Steadfast: AVOID AT ALL COSTS!! Calm is regularly used at Lord to exit combat, and berserkers with steadfast are trapped in combat and left to die by Lord groups.

Discipline, it reduces the AC penalty by 50% - which is from +50 to +25 for maximum berserk state at hero. The difference is maybe noticeable under extreme conditions like swarmy EHA rooms, if at that.

Rage Control, Rage Mastery: These rites provide insignificant benefits. Under regular (hero) conditions it's in the Berserker's interest to reach the berserk state without losing too much hp. Getting hit while tanking makes it easier than scarring.