berserker: max sword mastery or max both synergies?

[droid]

Each point in Sword Mastery gives a 5% damage increase...each point in a synergy for Berserk gives 10% magic damage. Obviously I have Berserk maxed, with one synergy maxed and the other getting the spare points past L88.

Would it boost my damage more to max both my synergies first, and then put spare points in mastery? Does the 5% damage boost from Mastery get amplified by the ~+900% damage from Berserk to give an actual 45% damage boost? Do the AR or CS bonuses from Mastery make a big enough difference to warrant consideration?

[vorpalbunny]

Damric's guide (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=553789) (which i followed when making mine) advocates full synergy. Radu's guide (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180236) advocates max a synergy and also a mastery.

Afaik, the damage from mastery is treated the same as the damage from the synergy, so in my mind, its a trade off between more raw damage vs. less raw damage but more ar and more mastery critical strike. In this way, it seems somewhat item dependent.

If you plan on having decent deadly strike ( i use death, highlords, and gores for 92 deadly strike at lvl88), synergies might be better as the critical strike doesn't stack well with deadly strike (you'll never get 4x damage, so if both trigger, you get no benefit).

Berserk gives a lot of ar, as well, so it doesn't take too much extra ar to get a decent plus hit (i have arreats and death that both give 20% each, 2x200ar ravens and a couple of 100ar gcs and hit pretty well for the most part). So, if you already have a decent ar base, full synergy might be better.

Finally, both synergies are useful (as skills) in a zerk build. High lvl howl can let you take on single targets much easier, and is very nice if you go the 2-handed route (although a 1pt warcry with +skills might substitute). Shout helps your merc/party and also you if you decide to use enigma and tele around (pretty much nothing hits you).

Still, this is my limited view and one sided at that. You'd do well to look at the guides as they both take opposing cases.

[Damric]

Sooner points in mastery really only helps if you are untwinked (but it helps a lot in that case). Whether you put your last few points in shout or mastery is not going to make or break the build. If you are already confident in your items, I would just get 1 point mastery at first, while you get bo/zerk/howl up to 20. Shout and mastery are defintely the least crucial, but still desired for endgame damage. Vorpalbunny has a good point about how much %deadly strike is on your gear. If you are rolling with a headstriker or something, obviously shout will be more appealing for more damage. But if you are smashing heads with an ethy tombreaver, mastery will help make up some critical. The goal is to maximize all of them by level 99 anyway right? I'm sure by that time you will know exactly what to do with those skill points.

Mastery %ed bonuses are additive, not multiplying the berserk bonus, but all damage bonuses will get converted to magic damage. Bonuses from critical/deadly strike does multiply your damage by two, and is practically essential to the build.

Vorpalbunny: did you ever make that death glorious axe? I'm so curious how that worked out, since I never had time to play with it ;(

[vorpalbunny]

Vorpalbunny: did you ever make that death glorious axe? I'm so curious how that worked out, since I never had time to play with it

I pretty much modeled the build (except axe of course) on the build you used in your guide. The death rolled middle of the road (339) but it still does decent damage. I do 5k-11k (as displayed), my deadly strike is 92, and i have ~11k ar.

Stylistically, I've never used high-level swords so I don't know how big a difference it is, but the axe is fun. I supposedly get a 1 more range over swords, and the comments about how crazy it is to actually use a 2-handed axe is fun.

Effectively, I can't clear large groups easily, but single monsters are pretty easy except for diablo and the like. He's currently netting a more consistent (and possibly a higher net) income doing key runs on 8 player games. Howl makes nihl pretty easy with tele to get around. I was thinking of using an act 1 faith merc, but using 2 hotos (as opposed to say, 2 wizspikes) and constantly teleing is hard on the potion count so, i'll probably use a insight act 2 in the future.

Over all its one of the more fun/useful characters I've made.