Help with my berserker

[Thirteenth]

Currently lvl 48 in nightmare act 1, doing okay in 8 player games but has a few problems with keeping Life up with my prayer merc, had a few close calls with my low Life (350-ish) but ive only died like twice.

Skills (8 unspent points)

Warcries

20 howl
1 shout
0 BO
0 BC


Masteries

1 sword mastery
0 Nat res
0 iron skin
0 inscreased stamina
0 increased speed


Combat skills

1 bash
1 stun
1 concentrate
19 berserk



Stats

Str - 90
Dex - base
Vit - base (yeah i know :P, and no BO either ;) )
Ene - base



Gear

G-face
Shaftstop
Eye of etlich
Headstriker sword (for the insane deadly strike)
no shield (i found my slow blocking speed to be a pain)
Gore riders
2x Raven frost
IK belt
IK gloves

A few dexterity charms in inventory so i can hold my sword.


Anything i should do now to become better? or just mowe on until i hit that Death Collosus blade.

Ive planned on maxing both my mastery and Shout to really max my berserk damage and im thinking i can get away with a low level BO (by just equipping CTA and Hoto or something) since the returns dont seem that attractive compared to increaded damage.

My resists are -20 right now so that is something i have to fix asap, been thinking of setting 1 point into nat-res but i dont know if i want to do it yet since im still not having acute problems with low resists.

[KremBanan]

You will want 1point in Natural Res. Its just too good to not put a point in it. Resists will hit you hard in Hell-difficulty.

[MYK]

Is there a reason you haven't put points into vitality?

Oh, and pick up a 2 hander if you're not going to use a shield. Using a 1-hander without a shield is kind of...Silly? The Ward or Ancients Pledge both make good Nightmare Berserker shields.

Good luck trying to escape Battle Orders. :D

[crawlingdeadman]

you'll do plenty of damage, dont worry. you should really place at least a point into bo. i do like your idea to skimp on bo a bit, i've thought of it myself. at one point i was planning on playing a zerk barb in a group of untwinks in HC. i figured if the other barb got bo that i could skimp on it and max out on damage and perhaps put more into wc. imo you should definitely get all the cries down to war cry itself. it's a huge thing for crowd control. sure you can use howl most of the time, but i like to wc to stun or at least the option.

also you should in 1 level switch to an oath weapon. it'll last you until you get endgame gear. shoot, i even use it as end game material on my L zerker. and if you didnt like slow blocking, use whitstan's shield. it's the blocking shield of choice up to stormshield.

[Thirteenth]

Is there a reason you haven't put points into vitality?

Oh, and pick up a 2 hander if you're not going to use a shield. Using a 1-hander without a shield is kind of...Silly? The Ward or Ancients Pledge both make good Nightmare Berserker shields.

Good luck trying to escape Battle Orders. :D

yeah... im thinking i might wanna go Titan and pump it 100% into strength,

And i dont have a 2h sword yet that matched my trusty headstriker, i got 100% deadly strike because of it <3