Berserk babster - warcry or not?

[whereagles]

Hi all,

I found a nice unique axe, ethereal edge, and I intend to build a berserk barbarian to use it. Since berserk has two synergies (howl/shout), I can't max out all the skills I'd like to use, so I have two choices.

Basic stuff
Combat: 20 berserk, 1 leap attack
Masteris: 10 axe mast, 1 speed, 1 resists. Only 10 mastery 'cos I can't affore more
Warcry: 20 battle orders, 1 find item
Prayer merc to help life regeneration

Now the options

A. 15 howl, 15 shout, 1 taunt, 1 grim ward. Build done at 83. Combat strategy would be like this
- Walk into a pack of monsters
- Scare them with howl
- Taunt them back 1 by 1 for termination
- Use grim ward if things get ugly
This plan gives more synergised berserk damage, but doesn't stun monsters.

B. 5 howl, 5 shout, 20 war cry, 1 taunt. Done at 83 too. Combat would works like
- Walk into a pack of monsters
- Stun them with war cry
- Kill 1 by 1, re-stunning as necessary
Less synergized berserk damage, but faster killing speed since you don't have to wait for monsters to walk back into range. More dangerous (stun wears out quickly) and more mana-hungry (needs vulpine itams to refill orb).

I'm slightly bending towards plan A, but, if someone with experience on both builds can give me a comment, I'd appreciate :)

Also, in 1.09 I tried a zerk babster with prayer aura, but the regeneration was close to non-existant. I know prayer was improved, but is it practical now, or still sucky? If sucky I'll try a freeze merc then :)

[AtomicKitKat]

Prayer: It's okay. Basically you will see your red ball jump a few hp every 3 real-time seconds(I think?)

Does mastery improve damage? If it doesn't, then I wouldn't bother too much with it except to get the criticals chance up to a decent amount(10%? 20?)

Most likely, I think you should max out Howl and Shout once you get Berserk(prior to that, get all other skills to at least 1 point each, saving points from about level 27-30, so you can have BO or is it BC? and Berserk and NR and Grim Totem? all at the same time) This way, Berserk gets the most benefits, without the evil burn of mana...

And definitely, Option A.

[Obi2Kenobi]

One of the ways Blizzard improved prayer was to shorten the pulse rate to every 2 seconds. :)

Mastery does improve Berserk's damage. Berserk converts the physical damage to magical after all other calculations (but before resists, of course).

I would go with option "A" as well.

[Chameleon]

I am currently working on build B in hardcore; Clvl 52, A4 Nightmare, the only slight difference is I spent 8pts in Natural Resistance.

So far, I haven't needed the damage bonus from synergies to augment my killing, it just takes me one more swing than if I was using them. As for War Cry needing a Vulpine item, that is easy to get. If you cannot find it, then craft caster items when coupled with maxed BO, you'll regenerate faster than you can spend most of the time. Currently my boy has 440 mana after BC/BO, i don't bother with shout for obvious reasons.

Build thus far:
- NR 8; Axe Mastery, stamina, speed, iron skin 1
- Berserk, Leap Attack 1 (and pre-reqs)
- BO 20, War Cry 15, (and pre-reqs)

Final build will have Berserk 20, and Axe Mastery 20, with some spare points for Find Item.

[Vash]

I had a 1.09 Barb of build B. He worked fairly well, but he couldn't handle crowds that were too large. He'd warcry, then whack whack whack away. But even with Berserk's large pure magic damage output as well as my 3 socket CCB, it still took a few swings to kill single monsters. Also, you have to keep warcrying to keep the crowd stunned or else you'll suddenly find yourself in the middle of a group of angry, fully-functional baddies.

Build A sounds a lot better because you can howl, taunt, then fight them one by one at your leisure instead of having to constantly switch back and forth between warcry and berserk.

[whereagles]

Thx ppl. I've decided to give build A a shot. I'll keep you posted how it goes, though it's gonna be slow, since I can only play on week-ends :D

[Boooyakasha]

I had a Berserker barb quite similar to your plan A, and I can assure you this is the safest yet fastest killer barb you can have :) The only few times I was killed was too carried away whacking the second group of minions where Baal Decripify me, the skeleton chilled me with their Ice Bolt, poisoned and I was in a real slow motion pulling my maul back after hitting them. Well of course I do not have Cannot be Frozen mod and my cold and poison resist are in negative region :P Now I just stand at the edge of screen and Taunt them over. The last group of minion will be real headache as Taunt and Howl do not work on them, but I lure them out 3-4 at a time and use the 1 point Concentration (synergised with BO) to kill them easily.

My skills:
20 Berserk
20 Howl
20 Shout
20 BO
1 NR, Speed, Mace Mastery, Taunt
Rest in Find Item (This has been converted to an awesome MF Barb)

My gears:
IK sets except armour with dual Shael'ed maul and dual PTopaz'ed Helmet.
Angelic sets except the sabre, and armour PTopaz'ed :P (+2K AR, 50%Fire Resist, 75 Life, 100%MF, +1 skills, % damage convert to mana, and some more mods)

My stats:
255 VIT
Rest in STR

With Might merc I am dealing around 7K Berserk, 3K Life, 18K AR. You will not need Grim Ward, as after you Howl the monsters run away so fast and so far you will not see them in your screen again. BO and Shout also make your merc a super killing tank, He clears the Pit, Mausoleum, all by himself and I am just there horking corpses wielding dual Alibaba or just stand there tanking for him, utilizing the combine MF to max :) It is even more fun killing Shenk, Eldritch and Pindle by him while I Howl away all the monsters. No need to fear the Black Soul too even my LR is negative, just Taunt them over and they will switch to melee mode, though then the Mana Burn they have is annoying.

Now just need the IK armour to up the % Resist :)

[Obi2Kenobi]

My stats:
255 VIT
Rest in STR

/wonders how your AR is that high

Vexingly Loud Termites

[Caaroid]

Angelic rings give 12 ar/level, two of them give 24/level. That is truly a desirable set!