ribcracker berserker: 20 skill points

[acceleration turkey]

upgraded ribcracker berserk is going well. level 81...just entered river of flame and im still killing a lot of monsters in one hit, which was the point of the build when i started.

i have 20 unused points though. points so far:

20 BO
20 berserk
7 mace mastery
7 warcry
2 natural resist
14 bash stun concentrate leap leap attack whirlwind increase stamina increase speed iron skin howl shout taunt battle cry battle command

the hard choice here is really between maxing shout and maxing whirlwind. ribcracker, although it is only range 2, is a godly whirlwind weapon because it delivers crushing blow like nobody's business, and it hits the last bp, and boosts your defense, etc. i used whirlwind with only 1 point in it all through nightmare with great success becase of its ability to deliver crushing blow so frequently. even now with its obviously poor damage compared to a maxed berserk, it has its uses.

here is the numbers breakdown:

3476-5294 berserk damage (4385 avg)
13700 berserk AR

1732-2642 WW damage (2187 avg)
5000 WW AR

4350 hp
74/39/36/24 resists

5550 defense

65% crushing blow, about 30% chance for double damage between critical and deadly strike.

im wearing lionheart, so i feel pretty stupid using any skill which is not berserk because my defense is so bad. yet it seems like maxing shout wouldnt exactly give me tremendous damage...20 points @ 10% per point is +200% weapon damage. my ribcracker does about 400 damage, so +200% adds 800 damage, which is a poor marginal improvement in my opinion.

on the other hand, my current WW is -10 damage at level 6. maxing it would give me +142% damage. this is a difference of 152% damage, which is about 600 damage. while 600 damage is less than 800 damage added by shout, it is 600 damage at a rate of 4 frames, whereas my berserk hits at 12 frames.

i have seen a lot of people advise that it is stupid to build skills are synergize skills which cannot be used simultaneously, that is, i should tweak berserk rather than gaining a whole new attack skill with WW because i cant use them both together. seems to me though that even if i had to alternate them, a maxed WW would serve me far better than a berserk that does a bit more damage. a damage increase of 600 on an avg damage of 2200 is a marginal increase of about 27%. a damage increase of 800 on an avg damage of 4400 is a marginal increase of about 18%.

i use a might merc so already my WW is disproportionately strong...it does about half the avg damage of my berserk, yet the skill itself is -10 damage, and berserk is +515 damage. strength, mastery and might aura give WW a huge boost.

so should i bother maxing WW? or should i just leave it at low levels and use it to whittle down boss monsters with its tremendous crushing blow output, and leave the real damage to berserk?

[rikstaker]

Tough choice really,now that u have already maxed berserk ,get on with it.Pumping up ww or not depends on ur gear,if u have arreats then maxing ww isnt necessary.Alternate between shout & ww from now on.Act 5 will be a pain with the ww dmg u will acheive.U'll have to rely on zerk against less numerous but high life/phys resist monsters like frenzy minos.But,like u said u can ww to loosen them up with cb,then zerk them.

I suggest max out mace mastery now.ww upto lvl 15-20(with +skill) should be ok,for that with decent eq u need just 5-10 points actually in it.I think lvl 10 with + skill should be a good option.

[Serdash]

Honestly it looks to me like you have way too many spread out skillpoints. I've not much experience with barbarians in 1.10, though. Why only 7 Warcry? That only gives about a 2 second duration I think. Maxing Warcry will stun most enemies for about 5 seconds, giving you safe time to zerk away with your low defense.

Then again I'm not exactly sure what kind of build you're going for. :scratch:

[Ash Housewares]

+skills could take WC to 3 seconds, but I don't know if thats enough, with frenzy it was, but frenzy attacks alot faster than berserk, in any case, all that would matter is you only get 2-2.5 seconds of zerking before using WC again, is 2-2.5 seconds enough at this point?

[Serdash]

Well assuming it's an upgraded ribcracker with no outside IAS gear he'd have a 15 frame zerk. That's 1.6 attacks per second... hardly worth the time of the 2-2.5 seconds. Assuming he has around 60% IAS other than the 50% from ribcracker that'd put him at a decent 2 attacks per second. 4 free hits is probably worth it... but honestly I'd go for maxed Warcry on a zerker. It's just too useful.

[Ash Housewares]

atleast warcry is the kind of thing one can experiment with, if he finds it works as is then good, otherwise he can start putting in points until he is comfortable, that was how I worked it

[rikstaker]

Ahh....

Didn't notice u had 7 in warcry(thanx for pointing that out guys)ehh.. I even forgot that 2h zerk without warcry = :cheesy: ,I was wondering were the skill points went.

In that case stick to zerk,leave ww where it is and from now alternate between shout & warcry,for a balance of damage & safety.Get some dmg to mana gear.Nothing does a better job than Naj's plate.

+300 Defense
Requirements -60%
45% dmg to mana
+1 To All Skills
All Resists+25
+65 To Life

U can use warcry and zerk at leisure. :thumbsup:

[Serdash]

I don't think using shout for outside safety is very useful... in all honesty you should probably be able to avoid attacks and get into position to warcry and take minimal hits. Plus with enough life a few hits won't take you down to nothing.

[rikstaker]

I recommended shout for synergy dmg(10% per point) and warcry for safety.

[Serdash]

Hmmm... Didn't realize the damage synergy. In that case Howl does the same thing and provides tons more safety than Warcry.

Not trying to step on your toes though. :D

[Ash Housewares]

I also like howl, it can be used in tandem with taunt, with all the AI tinkering and magic damage you'll look like a necro :D

[rikstaker]

nahh..I am wearing steel toes.

Howl provides the best safety alright,but it is worth using only as a premptive measure when u come across mana burn/fana packs and for crow control with taunt.He'll have to kill to gain levels. :uhhuh:

Shout on the other hand provides higher defense to u and ur merc plus more bo & bc duration,and it isn't useless when u are not zerking.Besides a 1 point howl with plus to skills is just as effective for the above situations.

rIK

[rikstaker]

Forgot to mention that each point in howl apart from zerk syn dmg simply gives additional distance/time that the enemy runs for.

Radius remains the same.So just 1 point is enough,since by the time they come back in again he would have finished off the monster he had taunted to fight solo,unless of course he is using the white handaxe that he started off with. :flip:

rIK

[acceleration turkey]

a few things...

with echoers and +skills my warcry is 4 seconds. its been enough so far. i am in the habit of using stun on single targets to drop their block and then wailing on them with berserk, and using warcry for crowds. i am willing to put more points in warcry, but at this point it seems that i would only need more against a mana burn lister pack, or some other large nuisance. i am wearing angelic's amulet so i have 20% damage to mana.

i have a 12 frame berserk attack. i tend to get off about 8 or 10 swings before any monsters can seriously retaliate if i warcry them. WW hits at 4 frames.

in regards to 'spreading my points too thin' i could easily finish the game as is, without spending these 20 points. i dont need them, but i feel dumb killing hell baal and then deciding "yup i could have used more damage/more defense" and the putting the points in. id rather have more fun getting there by killing faster, so i am looking to tweak my damage in some fashion.

i put enough points in mastery to get to where i was no longer getting 1% more critical strike per point (17%). since the damage synergies are 10% and berserk itself is 15%/15% damage/AR, mastery seems to be pretty unappealing at 5%/8% dmage/AR, especially since i have enough AR for pvm (almost 14k berserk) from angelics.

howl's radius as well as its effectiveness increases with level. at a very low level howl has a battle-cry sized radius, but at high levels it looks more like shout or something. also, its ability to affect monsters is based on the monster's level, your level, and howl's level. if you are lower level than the monster you are trying to howl, howl's level has to make up the difference or it will have a poor chance of working. i thought about shout vs howl for berserk synergies and i think my merc would appreciate a maxed shout very much, and that if i were decreped/holy freezed and wanted to use WW i would also want the extra defense.

starting act 5 now...still undecided. i did the same thing with my holy shock/zeal paladin...never did manage to use about 20 skill points. maybe i will just get it over with and dump them in shout for some damage.