EPTSkills
General Strategy
I’ve come up with a few different ideas for types of Berserkers, but the one I play predominantly is one whose damage and survivability come mainly through normal attacks. Claws can have a very high attack speed, and there are a number of fun things you can do on the side while your auto-attacks are doing their work. For instance, with a single 10 mana steal socketable item, I find I have more than enough mana to keep buffs and summons up while having some left over to mess around with other abilities.
Hunter Tree
I’m not going to lie. There wasn’t a lot in this tree I enjoyed playing with. But here are a few bits of this tree that might make it worthwhile to look at. I’ll note the things I didn’t like about the other abilities for discussion purposes.
Battle Rage – At least a 1-point wonder here. There is (last I checked) currently a bug which causes the tier bonus (which says it grants damage reduction as well) to actually cause you to take more damage.
Eviscerate – Attacks all enemies in front of you. This is especially good with claws, as they don’t normally get splash damage. The real bonus here, though, is that it can proc mana steal – meaning that with enough, you can eviscerate indefinitely. I personally prefer Stormclaw.
Raze – This is the attack for you if you want to see big numbers. Using a 2-hander with Raze, you can create some seriously big numbers. The reason I don’t use it – it’s slow to use, and I tend to prefer fast weapons.
Wolfstrike – Sounds cool, but the range on it is abysmally low. I had trouble keeping it
Howl – the big problem I have with debuffs in general is that individual enemies just don’t live that long (I am not at level cap, so maybe this changes), so while you could place this on a big pile of enemies, or on a boss type enemy, you could also just spend more time ripping into said enemy. I don’t view the loss of attack for the gain of howl to be enough of a gain (it is a gain, I’m sure) to be worth a skill point.
Rupture – Rupture was another ability that (like raze) seems really fun if you like big numbers. And it comes with a knockback, too. Also, like raze, the attack animation is fairly slow – so I personally am not using it. It does, however, hit multiple enemies around it, so if you’re a 2-handed user who likes raze and wants some splash, this is probably a good skill for you.
Ravage – This hits each enemy in the burst twice, which seems reasonable, but it doesn’t deal very much damage, doesn’t steal mana, and its an AOE requiring you to be close to use. I didn’t think much of it.
Passives – I like at least one point in each of these passives.
Blood Hunger grants a 5% heal on crit (which is nice, given you crit a lot during your fully charged state) – but there’s something untold about the proc (a cooldown timer or something), which prevents you from being untouchable when charged up.
Executioner is primarily for dual-wielding claw berserkers, for whom execute is really, really nice. I have a few here – though at later gear levels, I’ve read the additional execute chance is unnecessary with all that you can find on gear.
Rampage is one I have a few more points in. When you kill an enemy, it grants you an attack speed, movement speed, and cast speed bonus. It’s a noticeable one (25%) and when I have it, I can tell. Did I mention I like attacking fast?
Tundra Tree
I personally only have a couple of abilities I focus on from this tree, but I have little doubt that some of the other abilities are worth it. I think a cold-based Berserker would actually work quite well.
Frost Breath – This is one of the more regrettable abilities in the tree – not because it’s not good, but for its position in the tree. At low levels you need some ability which deals a decent amount of frost damage if you’re going with a build centered around frost damage. Instead, you don’t get one until 21. I do like the immobilize though, great for survivability - and its reported (though I haven't tested it) that you can use mana steal at max rank with this ability.
Stormclaw – I have every point I can have in this skill. It deals a high % of your weapon damage as lightning damage in a chain-lightning type effect. Two things really stand out about this ability. The first is how far the lightning can jump (giving you opportunities to kill melee/ranged monsters without needing to be in melee range with them – which is what eviscerate really lacked), and the fact that it deals weapon damage as lightning damage. This means that it can shock enemies, and that it uses their (generally lower) lightning resist instead of their armor to determine damage dealt. I really like this ability.
Storm Hatchet – I didn’t find a lot of reasons to like this ability. It’s nice if you want to immobilize on enemy, but how often do you only have one enemy you want to immobilize? Maybe there’s something about this ability I’m missing, but it doesn’t seem to deal particularly high damage, it seems reasonably slow to use, and while it’s ranged, it’s also single target.
Northern Rage – If you want to deal frost damage – use this. I don’t have many points in it because that isn’t the kind of character I’m building, but when I went to test this out, it exceeded my expectations. It knocks back, it deals high amounts of frost damage, and it does it to several targets.
Ice Shield – This buff is actually quite good and I’m putting a bunch of points in it. I find it gives the berserker an answer for something it can’t really answer otherwise. Berserker’s answer melee attacks with high armor, damage reduction, and melee positioning abilities. They answer magic abilities through evasion (most magic is dodgeable if you’re watching out for it). For ranged attacks? They use this ability to not only negate the damage, but reflect it back at their attacker. It’s a great ability that after several points can shut out all ranged attacks for its duration.
Permafrost - I want to like this ability, but it’s damage is damage-over-time instead of being direct damage, and you need to be close by to use it. I’m pretty undecided on this one. I like the other frost attacks more.
Glacial Shatter – Speaking of other frost attacks I like more, this one is reminiscent of the old Sorc spell blizzard. You don’t need to be nearby to use it, and it deals area damage in waves. I had fun testing with it, and it allowed me to deal damage in a lot of situations where I wouldn’t have been able to normally. Did I mention it also blinds?
Passives – I don’t really care for the passives for most (non-frost) berserkers. For ice damage-based berserkers, obviously you’ll want the bonuses to ice damage.
Cold Steel Mastery grants a large bonus to ice damage and a slight one to Physical Damage. The biggest thing to note about multiple points here is that they grant more bonus than subsequent points in battle rage (which I also don’t suggest many points in).
Shatter Storm has a nice effect, but only when you kill frozen enemies – meaning you need to be dealing frost damage.
Rage Retaliation (as near I could tell) did very slight amounts of damage, and not very often.
Shadow Tree
I spent most of my skill points here, and I don’t regret it for a second.
Shadow Burst – I put every point I can in this skill, it’s instant healing for a high % of your health which has no cooldown. With infinite mana, you could use this skill indefinitely and (unless you get effectively one-shot) never die. It’s an amazing ability that makes melee combat much, much easier.
Wolf Shade – Again, every point I can goes into this skill. The wolf shade deals pretty high damage (and therefore the life you gain from it is also quite high). Once you hit 15/15, it’s active for the entirety of its 1 minute cooldown unless it dies (which has happened, but it doesn’t feel overly fragile to me).
Shadowbind – This seems like a good ability for dealing damage to enemies from afar. I just never have a reason to use it. For me, the combination of ice shield, dodging magical effects, and just engaging stuff in melee as they come and allowing Stormclaw to hit things out at range seems like the better method of play.
Savage Rush – This is a fast hitting attack that damages as you move. It’s pretty nice, but there are a few things worth noting. First, it only counts as one attack for the purposes of the Shred Armor buff. Second, it doesn’t drain mana on hit. Third, it doesn’t proc Stormclaw. I don’t use it for these reasons.
Chain Snare – This pulls a very short range, deals a very light amount of damage, and (though it does have a stun chance) just didn’t seem all that useful. It seems like most of the time you spend pulling something in could be better spent running up to it instead, and this also makes the enemies around you move, too. It could be good, I just wasn’t crazy about it.
Battle Standard - This is a fun ability, and the mana regen attached to the Tier 1 bonus is just amazing. The biggest problem I have with Battle Standard is that I move around a lot in combat, and for that reason I dislike the idea that I'd be losing my buffs while I do so.
Wolfpack – There are a lot of problems with this that make it difficult to use – however, currently I’m using it anyway – and loving it. First, the Wolves have a tendency to be dumb. They don’t avoid walls (they hit walls and despawn). They seem to target based on the direction cast and the proximity of the creature. They turn terrible slowly. And yet, all this aside, I find them worth it (for non-frost builds) for a few reasons. First, it gives you a method of dealing high damage while not in melee (in the case of enemies which hit too hard for you to stand in for their attacks). Second, their first tier bonus is that they can damage multiple enemies in their path. This means that they don’t just hit 5 (or 6 or 7) enemies, they hit nearly everything in the direction they are cast in – often if there’s only one enemy, they hit that enemy multiple times.
Passives – Shred Armor is the only passive I took, but it’s a doozy.
Shred Armor is an amazing passive which effectively “steals” enemy armor. The important thing to note here is that for auto-attacks, the affect of the passive stacks with subsequent attacks. Meaning that if it steals 100 armor per attack, after 5 attacks, the enemy is down 500 armor and you are up 500 armor (though the durations of each affect are separate too, so you won’t have infinite armor, you’ll have 100x armor, where x is the number of attacks you get in a 3 second period). This also stacks with each attack from executes, meaning that having a high execute chance actually increases your armor, too. If you intend on being melee, get this ability. It’s really, really good.
Frenzy Mastery makes your frenzy states last longer. I find this adds little enough to the duration that it isn’t worth getting for me. If someone knew a way to trigger frenzy more often, this might be worth it.
Red Wolf deals a small amount of damage to two nearby enemies when you crit. I don’t consider this to have any value unless your crit chance is outrageous and so is the damage scaling. The damage has always seemed inconsequential to me.
Stats
The build I went with split about even between strength and vitality. However, looking back, I don’t really consider the vitality portion to have been worth it. 4 HPs per point just isn’t that much, and the armor bonus is much smaller than the damage bonus provided by strength. If you’re looking to mostly use your normal attack for damage, I’d highly recommend strength.
Focus can be a worthwhile stat for those who deal primarily elemental damage, or for those who really need executes (I’ll reiterate, though, that I’ve read that at high levels, execute chance is pretty easy to cap – I’m not there yet myself).
Vitality, as I mentioned, is 4 health per point and some additional armor. I don’t value this very highly at high levels, because it just doesn’t mean as much when your base health is in the thousands as it does early on.
Dexterity might be worthwhile if you need dex for gear. Dex for crit is only useful outside of frenzy, though, and as I mentioned the most synergistic element of high crit characters (the life-on-crit passive) seems to only proc periodically, instead of every time you crit. I don’t see making a dex-based berserker, except as a more non-traditional berserker who uses guns or something.
Spells
I love the summon spells. The damage that I’ve seen archers do is amazing (again with shred armor maxxed). Other summons seem valuable too. I like haste (as movement speed seems highly underrated for magic evasion and just plain running away) and adrenaline rush, too. Dervish has its moments as well, though I generally dislike things I can’t keep up all the time – both because I lose track of them and because the times I need it, it seems like it’s never up. The heals pale in comparison to Shadow Burst, unless you’re ranged or something.
Overall Summary (i.e. the TLDR version)
I truly enjoy my berserker build, and the berserker in general. It uses mana steal to get the healing from shadow burst for survivability, buffs like Stormclaw (which combos well with the single attack – armor ignoring abilities of claw weapons), Ice Shield, and Battle Rage to negate ranged attacks and amp up your damage, summons which deal physical damage like wolf shade, archers and zombies to deal additional damage, and direct attacks through Wolfpack. The combination of fast attack speed with Shred Armor to take less and less damage from physical attacks (while trying to dodge magical ones) is essential. All the while, can keep myself moving and attacking quickly, much akin to the Frenzy barb (whom I miss). It feels very survivable (on Veteran), it feels like you kill things fairly quickly, and overall it feels very powerful. I’m having a great time with my berserker.
And the best part is I could think up a ton more ways to make him differently, which I fully intend on trying. I like Torchlight, and I love the Berserker.
Ideal build: http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc?i=1#vOfx9EHNm7lK4HcSpEQgVscRsRPc0Eu_E8FFFMWonR
Intended Frost Build: http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc?i=1#etgTRO-7vSetcBYKy151Mq1bXhO (skills mainly - perhaps other spells, and i'll be using a ton of attribute points in focus)
