Berserker Skill Guide

Berserker Skill Guide

By Omnisciurus

Short but thorough guide for evaluating the Berserker's skills in Torchlight II.

GUIDE INDEX

Overview

Introduction 

Hunter 

Tundra 

Shadow 

Conclusion 

Comments

Introduction

In honor of reaching NG+5 on Elite with my hybrid dual-wielding / auto-attacking / Tundra / Raze / whatever Berserker, I present to you my short primer of all Berserker skills in Torchlight II.

I've put well over 600 hours into Torchlight II and leveled multiple Elite characters through various NG+ tiers, both on softcore and hardcore, so I know a bit about how the game works. Hopefully this guide will help you in picking skills for your build and whatnot.

Charge bar

Filling the Berserker's charge bar brings the character into a Frenzy state for six seconds, during which the Berserker gains increased movement speed and a 100% critical hit chance. Since charge rate is based on the amount of damage you deal, strong Berserkers nearly always have 100% crit chance throughout most of the late game because of the high damage output.

For an excellent Berserker skill calculator, click HERE[www.tidbi.ru]

Hunter

Eviscerate

You tear into all enemies directly in front of you, leaving them bleeding for six seconds.

The starting Berserker skill, basically a swipe attack. The damage improves with skill rank, while the bleed damage also improves with player level and tier bonuses. The skill receives great range bonuses with each tier, becoming a highly effective AOE attack.

Howl

You howl in fury filling nearby foes with terror. Affected foes are slowed and become less able to defend themselves for several seconds.

One of the best debuffs in the game, if not the best overall. When maxed, its range is sufficient to hit all enemies on screen. It has no cooldown, lasts for 13 seconds at max rank and slows all enemy movement and attacks to a crawl. The best part of Howl is its damage increase buff. Unlike all other damage bonuses like the extra damage from Strength, Focus and "+X% damage" items/skills, the damage bonus from Howl applies AFTER your entire damage is calculated. So if you normally crit for 100k damage and use a 40% damage buff from Howl, your crits will straight up deal 140k damage. Worth maxing for any Berserker build.

Raze

You perform a devastating uppercut that inflicts heavy damage on a single target. With each successive hit, you grow in power.

Raze stands out as being the only one of the three main damage-dealing skills (Eviscerate, Raze, Ravage) that doesn't generate any charge or deal any AOE damage. On the other hand, its damage is the highest of the three and the sheer amount of debuffs that a maxed Raze stacks on the enemy is borderline ridiculous. The best boss-killing skill in the Berserker's arsenal.

Wolfstrike

You lunge forward in a six-meter dash, claws slashing, rending all foes in your path.

In a world where Shadow Burst exists, why would anyone ever use Wolfstrike? Sure, Wolfstrike can deal more damage and has a hilariously large knockback, but it simply can't match the healing effect provided by Shadow Burst. Pass.

Battle Rage

You enter an enraged state during which your damage is amplified based on the number of foes within four meters.

Looks crazy powerful in theory, but is really just "okay". The damage reduction bonus only affects physical damage and is only useful until you get better damage-reducing gear. Although the buff to damage seems impressive, it stacks with other percentage-based bonuses, which means that having something like +40% all damage from Battle Rage is really equivalent to having an extra 80 Strength or Focus, which isn't exactly remarkable in late game. Feel free to take this skill if you want a bit of extra damage, but don't expect anything spectacular.

Rupture

You knock a single enemy back with a devastating strike. After a brief delay, the target explodes, damaging all foes within four meters.

In effect, this is the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique from Kill Bill. Like other physical skills, Rupture's damage is improved by Focus, not Strength, and actually scales really well with player level and skill rank. However, its usefulness is somewhat mitigated by the delay between striking an enemy and the enemy exploding, and the fact that your character follows the attack through by moving forward, so you can't just stand your ground and knock fools away from you. There are better skills to use as a main attack.

Ravage

You execute a brutal series of slashes, inflicting three strikes on all foes within four meters. Enemy armor is weakened with each strike.

The final skill in the Berserker's skill tree. It hits three times, deals decent damage in a large AOE and strips away enemy armor like nobody's business. It also has a few shortcomings. First, its huge mana cost makes Ravage unviable without either having +% mana steal gear or a ridiculous amount of Focus. Second, Ravage has its own reduced critical hit chance modifier, which means that the skill does not always crit even with a full charge bar.

Eviscerate vs. Raze vs. Ravage

Let's assume a Berserker who has all those three skills maxed at rank 15/15. The Berserker has 1000 Strength (+500% weapon damage), 200 Focus (+100% elemental damage) and no other damage bonuses. He has a pure physical damage weapon with 750 damage and .75 attack speed, so the weapon's listed DPS is 6000.

15/15 Eviscerate

130% of 6000 = 7800 per hit

Bleed: 5504 + 100% = 11,008 damage over 2 seconds

15/15 Raze

210% of 6000 = 12,600 on initial hit (14,175 per hit after Raze's 75% damage bonus)

15/15 Ravage

46% of 6000 = 3 * 2760 per hit (8280 per target)

Overall, the results are as expected. Raze is the superior single-target skill, while Eviscerate solidly beats Ravage in terms of damage thanks to bleed. However, it should be noted that Ravage has the highest base cast speed out of the three skills as well as superior range, which means that its overall DPS against groups of enemies can surpass Eviscerate, especially considering the fact that the bleed damage of Eviscerate can't crit.

Bottom line, unless you're going for a dual-wield auto-attack build, use Raze against champions and bosses, and pick either of the other two skills as your main AOE attack. Sidenote: all three skills also convey weapon effects like -X to armor, damage-over-time, +% chance to cast spells on hit, silence, freeze, burn, poison, etc.

Blood Hunger (Passive)

When you land a critical strike with a melee weapon, you draw life essence from the carnage, healing your wounds.

This is an incredible one-point-wonder. The Berserker has a 100% crit chance with a full charge bar, so Blood Hunger will proc constantly and keep healing you. It also procs off ANY critical hit, not just auto-attacks or melee skills. However, there's no reason to spend more than one point on this skill because you only improve the healing effect by 0.5% per rank.

Executioner (Passive)

Your ferocity in combat enables you to more frequently strike with two weapons at once. When you successfully execute, you gain charge more quickly for a short period of time.

This is a skill that relies on you having poor equipment. The charge rate increase is irrelevant in late game if you're properly geared, because your damage will likely be sufficient to fill the bar almost instantly. Also, the chance to execute can be better improved by gear and Focus. Only consider this passive if you intend to make a dual-wield build without progressing to new game plus.

Rampage (Passive)

Each enemy you kill with a melee weapon has a chance of spurring you into an adrenaline-fueled rampage.

Another great one-point-wonder that provides useful attack and movement speed bonuses. Like Blood Hunger, it can proc off ANY kill as long as you have a melee weapon equipped, so skills like Rage Retaliation, Wolfpack and Northern Rage can also trigger Rampage. However, unlike Blood Hunger, spending more points in Rampage can actually be worth it because it improves the proc chance by 2% per rank.

Tundra

Frost Breath

You channel the frigid north winds to unleash a blast of icy breath, which immobilizes enemies and makes them more susceptible to damage.

The damage of Frost Breath is totally unremarkable and the Berserker has many better ways to freeze enemies, but the skill has one very useful quality – its damage increase buff. Unlike all other damage bonuses like the extra damage from Strength, Focus and "+X% damage" items/skills, the damage bonus from Frost Breath applies AFTER your entire damage is calculated. So if you normally crit for 100k damage and use a 30% damage buff from Frost Breath, your crits will straight up deal 130k damage. Also, Frost Breath is one of the only two skills in the entire game that can proc life/mana leech on hit (the second being Embermage's Magma Mace).

Stormclaw

You imbue your weapons with an electrical energy. This power can cause a lightning bolt to arc toward nearby targets when you strike a foe.

This would be an ideal one-point-wonder skill if not for two things. First, the duration of Stormclaw is pitiful (40 seconds), which makes recasting the skill very tedious. Second, it only triggers off auto-attacks, which you rarely see in late game Berserker builds, unless you have godly gear that can support dual-wielding your way through Elite difficulty.

Storm Hatchet

You draw wild northern lightning out of your weapon to create an electrical throwing axe with a range of 15 meters.

Storm Hatchet is a surprisingly effective skill that makes ranged Berserker builds quite viable, especially after you unlock the Tier II bonus (triple throw). Storm Hatchet deals a high percentage of weapon DPS converted to electric damage, which means that it benefits a lot from both Strength and Focus. It also slows enemies to a standstill and generates charge faster than any other skill, often filling the charge bar after a single cast at higher skill ranks.

Northern Rage

You unleash an arctic blast from deep inside you, throwing out shards of ice to knock back and freeze nearby foes.

Basically the Berserker's version of the Engineer's Emberquake. Sadly, there are fewer fissures and they don't seek out enemies like the Emberquake does. Nevertheless, the damage is still impressive for Focus-oriented builds, although the variable min/max damage range is pretty huge, making the skill fairly unreliable as an AOE attack.

Iceshield

You call forth an ice shield which reflects projectile missles back at attackers. You also have a chance to gain 10% of your charge bar when the shield is struck. The shield lasts for 10 seconds.

Iceshield is an insanely powerful defensive skill, with its only real drawback being the short duration. Having a rank 10/15 Iceshield makes you completely immune to all ranged attacks, so there's no real point in maxing the skill above that.

Permafrost

The bone-cracking cold of the north expands outward from you, slowly sapping the life of all foes within 16 meters.

Not terribly impressive. The damage of maxed Permafrost is equivalent to the damage from Engineer's maxed Dynamo Field (base 1200 per second), but unlike Dynamo Field, it cannot be spammed due to the cooldown, so you cannot stack the damage. Since Permafrost only deals damage-over-time, it also cannot crit. It's just too slow to be effective on higher difficulties.

Glacial Shatter

The earth is sundered and five geysers burst forth at the target location, blinding and damaging foes with superheated air and water.

Glacial Shatter is essentially a pre-emptive AOE attack, as the geysers take about a second to "burst forth", so you need precise timing to catch any enemies with it. The placement of geysers is also fairly random. The potential damage of this skill just isn't high enough to justify its erratic nature.

Cold Steel Mastery (Passive)

The only thing harder than steel is cold steel. +2% to physical damage, +6% to ice damage per rank.

Obviously a great passive for any Berserker using weapons with high elemental ice damage. The physical damage bonus also doesn't hurt. Note that Cold Steel Mastery DOES affect the damage of all your ice-based skills (Northern Rage, Permafrost, etc.) and physical skills (Savage Rush, Rupture, etc.), but only if you have a melee weapon equipped.

Shatter Storm (Passive)

When you kill frozen enemies, you blast nearby foes in a four-meter ring of frost, leaving them more susceptible to further ice attacks.

Not a bad passive, especially since the Berserker does not exactly lack ways of freezing enemies. Nice one-point-wonder for the immobilization effect, but consider putting more points into it if you're using a lot of ice-based attacks.

Rage Retaliation (Passive)

When you are struck by a nearby enemy, your inner rage physically manifests and retaliates against that foe. Damage is equal to 120% of your weapon's DPS.

Basically a form of reflect damage. However, unlike the pitiful reflect damage effects you can find on items, Rage Retaliation scales off your weapon DPS and has the ability to crit. This means that even a one-point Rage Retaliation can one-shot trash mobs. The skill has drawbacks, however. It can only trigger against enemies in close range and has a two-second cooldown. Also, the enemy attack has to actually hit you in order to trigger Rage Retaliation, so any dodged or blocked attacks don't count. Not really worth more than one point unless you have nothing better to spend your skill points on.

Shadow

Shadow Burst

You transform into a spectral wolf and lunge through your enemies, damaging them even as you heal your own body. Shadow burst has a chance to destroy the shields of any foes struck. The healing is limited to a maximum of two targets per burst.

The best overall Berserker skill, bar none. It's basically a short dash that phases through enemies, allowing you to avoid slow incoming attacks or escape when surrounded. It also deals decent damage, benefiting both from Strength and Focus, and has a high chance to shatter shields. Its real strength, however, is its ability to heal the Berserker.

Shadow Burst can heal at most 10% of your max health (5% heal per enemy) at rank 1/15, but when maxed, it can heal up to 60%. Yes, it's as insane as it sounds. If your character has 10,000 max health and you phase through five enemies (12% heal per enemy), you will instantly restore 6000 health. Effective use of Shadow Burst makes the Berserker nearly invulnerable even on the highest difficulties.

Wolf Shade

You summon a Wolf Shade to sink its icy fangs into your enemies and heal you with their lifeforce. The Shade can be summoned once every minute.

Summons a companion that follows you around and attacks enemies like a second pet. The duration of the shade is sadly quite pitiful and you really need to max the skill to get any decent use out of it. When maxed, the shade leeches 33% of damage dealt back to the Berserker, which is a fairly decent (if a bit unreliable) method of healing if you're lacking other alternatives.

Shadowbind

You bind a group of foes within a five-meter radius of your target location. All your subsequent melee attacks transfer a percentage of damage to all shadowbound targets.

Here's a skill with a highly misleading description. The amount of damage dealt to shadowbound enemies is based on your weapon's DPS, not the actual damage you manage to deal per hit. So even if you max the skill to rank 15/15 and crit mobs for 30k damage, all shadowbound targets will take a only a fraction of that damage because the listed DPS of your weapon will always be much lower. This skill is not worth the bother.

Savage Rush

The shadow wolf spirit overtakes you! While the skill remains active, you dash continuously through foes, leaving them bleeding in your wake.

Here's a skill that turns you into a running werewolf. The main damage of Savage Rush is caused by its physical damage-over-time effect, which is improved by player level, skill rank, Focus, Cold Steel Mastery and other +% physical damage bonuses, but not by Strength. Savage Rush requires a huge investment in Focus to sustain its mana cost and bring the damage up to a respectable level. Even then, there are better options for a main attack. Otherwise worth one point for the movement speed bonus if you want to get around a bit more quickly.

Chain Snare

Spearing all enemies within six meters, you draw them swiftly into melee range.

Here's a skill that's thoroughly useless for nearly all builds. It pulls all surrounding enemies closer, dealing a bit of damage and having a chance to briefly stun them. Alternatively, you could just walk up to enemies and hit them with a sword or something, I dunno. The only conceivable use for Chain Snare that I can think of is some kind of combo with Red Wolf, but even then you'd need at least a rank 10/15 Chain Snare for the extended range. This skill is way more trouble than it's worth.

Battle Standard

The ancient standard of your tribe imbues you and your allies with increased evasion, resistance to knockback, and increased charge gain while within its influence.

Once upon a time, this skill used to be bugged and provided essentially infinite mana. Since that's no longer the case, Battle Standard has been relegated to the list of sub-par Berserker skills. Half the bonuses are unremarkable, and the fact that you need to constantly keep recasting it as you move around the map certainly doesn't help. The bonuses also don't scale with player level. While it's not a terrible skill, there are better choices out there.

Wolfpack

You unleash a pack of spectral wolves that spread out and attack enemies all around you.

Wolfpack is basically a Mr. Burns simulator, allowing you to "release the hounds" at enemies. The physical damage scales with player level, while an extra DPS-based damage component is added with higher skill ranks. Wolfpack is only useful for Focus-based builds, as its damage is not improved by Strength. If you want to make a "ranged" Berserker, Wolfpack is a good skill choice.

Frenzy Mastery (Passive)

Your feral nature grows more powerful and harder to suppress, increasing the duration of your Frenzy states.

Increases your default six-second Frenzy duration by half a second per rank. Not especially useful when leveling and completely pointless in late game, since you usually fill your entire charge bar in a few seconds anyway as long as you're dealing decent damage.

Shred Armor (Passive)

Your inner savagery rips into your enemies' armor, leaving them vulnerable with each hit, while at the same time stealing some of their armor for yourself.

Shred Armor is a very straightforward and useful passive, as the enemy armor debuff and your physical armor buff both scale with player level and skill rank. The armor debuff is applied with auto-attacks and any skill that has a DPS-based damage component (Raze, Northern Rage, etc.). However, the physical armor buff is NOT applied with certain DPS-based skills, namely Northern Rage, Shadow Burst, Savage Rush, Frost Breath and Rage Retaliation. Still worth maxing in nearly every build.

Red Wolf (Passive)

Whenever you inflict a critical hit, up to two neighboring enemies may be savaged by a manifestation of your bloodlust.

Red Wolf is a nice one-point wonder, although it suffers greatly from one major drawback – its range. For Red Wolf to trigger, you must be standing VERY close to both your original target and the intended targets of Red Wolf. The damage of the skill scales with player level, skill rank and Focus. It can also crit, although sadly this does not produce a chain reaction of multiple Red Wolf procs.

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide has been of some help.

If you want to check out other class-specific skill guides, the links are below:

Outlander Skill Guide

Embermage Skill Guide

Engineer Skill Guide

I've also written two other guides for Torchlight II, found here:

Ultimate Torchlight II Guide

Achievement Guide

Good luck and have fun playing!