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Updated: August 1, 2026, relying on comments
This article covers the Berserker, a new mastery introduced in the latest DLC, Fangs of Asterkarn.
After testing the mastery firsthand and investigating how its mechanics work, I have compiled my findings along with information that may prove useful when planning a build.
- Berserker Basics
- Unique Mechanic #1: Onslaught
- Unique Mechanic #2: Shapeshifting
- The Berserker’s Attacks Outside of Wereform
- Berserker Defensive Tools
- Berserker Mobility
- Berserker Resistance Reduction
- Berserker Exclusive Skills
- Choosing a Second Mastery
- Soldier Cooldown Attacks
- Nightblade Cooldown Attacks
- Demolitionist Cooldown Attacks
- Arcanist Cooldown Attacks
- Shaman Cooldown Attacks
- Necromancer Cooldown Attacks
- Inquisitor Attacks with Cooldowns
- Recap: Berserker’s Own Cooldown Attacks
- Which Masteries Have Resistance Reduction That Synergizes with Berserker?
- Quick Compatibility Table by Transformation
- Which Masteries Have WPS That Synergize with Berserker?
- Which Masteries Have Cooldown Reduction?
- The Berserker’s Three Biggest Problems
Berserker Basics
The Berserker primarily deals Cold, Bleeding, and Piercing damage. Its skill modifiers allow it to convert Cold and Pierce damage into Chaos damage.
Its two main mechanics are Onslaught, a default attack replacer that increases the power of attacks with cooldowns, and its shapeshifting abilities.
Unique Mechanic #1: Onslaught
Onslaught is a unique mechanic of the Berserker mastery. Each time you attack with Onslaught, its default attack replacer, you gain a stack that increases the damage of skills with cooldowns.
Each stack increases their damage by 15%. Regardless of how many stacks you have accumulated, they expire after approximately four seconds.
Note: “Attacks with a cooldown” are not limited to skills from the Berserker mastery. Skills from other masteries and components also qualify, and their DoT damage is amplified as well. However, Devotion skills, automatically triggered item skills, and debuffs are excluded.
Testing Slam, a component-granted skill, against the training dummy with no Onslaught stacks and then with six stacks of the Onslaught buff.
As you can see, without the buff, the initial hit deals around 900 damage, followed by DoT ticks of roughly 200 damage per second.
After building up six stacks, however, the initial hit deals around 1,500–1,700 damage, while the DoT deals roughly 380 damage per second—an increase of approximately 90%.
Since six Onslaught stacks were active, this appears to show that the skill’s damage was increased by:
15% × 6 = 90%
Testing Aegis of Menhir, an Oathkeeper skill with a cooldown, against the training dummy with and without Onslaught stacks.
Once again, both the initial hit and the DoT portion deal approximately 1.9 times as much damage.
Assigning the Devotion skill Tsunami to Onslaught and testing it against the training dummy.
As you can see, triggering Tsunami neither increases its damage through Onslaught nor consumes any Onslaught stacks.
Quick Reference: What Onslaught Affects
| Skill Type | Affected by Onslaught |
|---|---|
| Berserker skills with cooldowns | Yes |
| Skills with cooldowns from other masteries | Yes |
| Component-granted skills | Yes |
| Devotion skills | No |
Dual-Wielding Does Not Build Onslaught Stacks Faster
As shown in the following videos, even when dual-wielding causes both weapons to strike, Onslaught stacks appear to build at the same rate as when attacking with a single weapon.
In both cases, the character reaches seven stacks in approximately three seconds.
Onslaught stack generation speed while using a single weapon.
Onslaught stack generation speed while dual-wielding.
Onslaught as a damage source
Onslaught itself deals a combination of weapon damage and flat Cold damage.
At skill level 1:
- 100% Weapon Damage
- 7 Cold Damage
At skill level 16:
- 170% Weapon Damage
- 101 Cold Damage
For comparison, here is the Demolitionist’s Fire Strike.
At level 1:
- 100% Weapon Damage
- 6 Fire Damage
- +4% Physical Damage
At level 16:
- 145% Weapon Damage
- 55 Fire Damage
- +56% Physical Damage
…Looking at it this way, even in terms of raw damage output alone, it packs some serious firepower.
It looks like this is very much a skill designed to be combined with cooldown-based attacks.
Covenant of Ch’thon, an Onslaught modifier, can convert 100% of its Cold and Piercing damage into Chaos.
The three masteries capable of reducing Chaos Resistance are Occultist, Inquisitor, and Demolitionist, so those are possible combinations.
However, all three of those masteries can also reduce Elemental Resistance, which includes Cold. Unless you are going all-in on Chaos damage, there may not be much reason to perform the conversion in the first place.
The Berserker itself can provide roughly equal damage bonuses and resistance reduction for Cold, Pierce, and Chaos damage. The problem with Chaos, however, is that it has no corresponding DoT type that Frostburn damage can be converted into.
Since the Berserker has access to plenty of ways to inflict Frostburn, converting its damage to Chaos makes it difficult to take full advantage of one of the mastery’s major strengths.
Open Wounds and Its Extremely High Bleeding Damage
Open Wounds, one of Onslaught’s modifiers, deals up to 633 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds (!!??) and applies 20% Reduced Target’s Damage.
The damage reduction only affects enemies you actually hit, but 20% is still substantial.It can also be paired with AoE WPS to spread damage reduction across multiple enemies.
More importantly, though, being able to deal 211 Bleeding Damage per second with a default attack replacer feels slightly ridiculous.
Our old friend Savagery only deals 49 Bleeding Damage per second. Fighting Form deals 212 per second, while Whirling Death deals 109.
Open Wounds can therefore be considered an exceptionally high-damage skill.
Explosive Strike is probably the most famous example of a skill that adds damage over time to a default attack replacer, but that only deals 68 Burn Damage per second.
Open Wounds deals 3 times as much.
Admittedly, Explosive Strike also gives your default attacks an exciting 3.8-meter explosion radius, so the two skills are trying to accomplish different things.
Building More Stacks with Endless Rage
The modifier Endless Rage increases the maximum number of Onslaught stacks, allowing you to pack even more damage into a single attack. It also boosts the Cold and Bleeding damage dealt by Onslaught.
Note, however, that it only raises the maximum number of stacks. It does not increase the number of stacks gained per hit.
Unique Mechanic #2: Shapeshifting
The Berserker can transform into two different forms.
Werewolf is a warrior-style form whose skills all include weapon damage.
Wereraven is a caster-style form whose skills do not include weapon damage at all.
Transforming does not grant any inherent stat bonuses by itself. It simply changes the attacks available to you.
While transformed, WPS are disabled and Onslaught cannot be used.
WPS triggering with Righteous Fervor before transforming, but no WPS triggering with Feral Claws after transforming.
Righteous Fervor can be assigned to the attack slot before transforming, but becomes unavailable for assignment after transforming.
The transformation itself has no time limit. As long as you can pay the Energy cost, you can switch freely between your transformed and normal forms at any time.
However, maxing out Form of the Beast provides the following bonuses while transformed:
- Total Damage Modified by 10%
- +20% Maximum Attack Speed
- +20% Maximum Casting Speed
- 40% Chance when Hit to extend the duration of Untamed Rage, up to 10 seconds
At maximum rank, Untamed Rage activates when your Health drops below 50% and provides:
- 33% Damage Absorption
- +20% Offensive Ability
- 5-Second Skill Recharge
- 5-Second Duration
In other words:
- Simply taking Form of the Beast and transforming only gives you the 10% Total Damage Modified bonus
- To take advantage of the offensive benefits, you need to build up enough Attack Speed or Casting Speed to exceed the normal caps
- To make use of the Untamed Rage combo, you first need enough baseline durability to survive until your Health falls below 50%
In the sense that it is a defensive buff that only kicks in after your health has already dropped, the closest comparison would be the Demolitionist’s Blast Shield.
Once it activates, it makes you dramatically tougher. However, just like Blast Shield, if you are already under enough pressure to trigger it, there are many situations where your defenses still collapse almost instantly despite the damage reduction.
How Skills Work While Transformed
After testing the transformation mechanics, I found the following:
- Default attack replacers and WPS cannot be triggered while transformed.
- All other active skills—including debuffs such as resistance reduction—and passive skills remain usable.
- Devotion skills still work while transformed.
- Devotion skills can also be assigned to transformation-exclusive attack skills.
- The attack animations are the same whether you are dual-wielding or using a single weapon. Damage only changes when the skill includes off-hand weapon damage.
- You can build up Onslaught stacks before transforming, then apply those stacks to an attack used after transformation.
Quick Reference: Skill Availability While Transformed
| Skill Category | Availability |
|---|---|
| Default attack replacers | No |
| WPS | No |
| Active skills | Yes |
| Passive skills | Yes |
| Devotion skills | Yes |
| Assigning Devotion skills to transformation-exclusive skills | Yes |
| Applying pre-built Onslaught stacks to transformed attacks | Yes |
Werewolf
Werewolf form deals either Pierce and Bleeding damage or Chaos and Bleeding damage, and all of its attacks feature Weapon Damage scaling.
By reducing enemy Defensive Ability while increasing Critical Damage, it functions as a crit-focused attacker.
Both Werewolf-exclusive attack skills—Feral Claws and Rip and Tear—can strike multiple targets.
In the early game, simply transforming into a Werewolf and using Feral Claws to attack multiple enemies is enough to mow them down one after another.
Both skills include Weapon Damage scaling and additional flat Pierce damage. Rip and Tear has a lengthy four-second cooldown, but in exchange, it can deal up to 295% Weapon Damage, 375 Pierce Damage, and an absurd 810 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds—270 per second—to enemies within a small area. Both Werewolf-exclusive skills also scale equally with main-hand and off-hand Weapon Damage.
Considering that Rend from the Huntress devotion deals 325 Bleeding Damage per second at maximum level, that is an outrageous amount of Bleeding damage.
As mentioned earlier, Devotion skills remain active while transformed, and DoTs from different sources stack. By also using Onslaught and Open Wounds before transforming, you can stack all of the following:
- The Bleeding DoT inflicted by Open Wounds through Onslaught before transforming
- The Bleeding DoT inflicted by Feral Claws after transforming
- The Bleeding DoT inflicted by Rip and Tear after transforming, with its damage further amplified if you build up Onslaught stacks beforehand
- Bleeding DoTs inflicted by Devotion skills
- If your weapon damage includes Bleeding damage, an additional Bleeding DoT applied through whichever of these attacks has the highest Weapon Damage scaling
- Any additional Bleeding DoTs provided by your secondary mastery
All of these effects can stack, resulting in devastating Bleeding damage.
As also explained earlier, resistance-reduction debuffs remain usable while transformed, and Devotion skills can be assigned directly to transformation-exclusive attacks. This makes it relatively easy to set up multiple overlapping DoTs.
The modifier Blight of Ch’thon can also convert 100% of the Pierce damage dealt by Werewolf-exclusive skills into Chaos damage.
Taking Voracity adds up to a massive 28% Attack Damage Converted to Health to Feral Claws. It also grants +45% Critical Damage and adds 310 Bleeding Damage over 2 seconds, further strengthening a crit-focused Bleeding strategy.
Its modifier, Recklessness, applies an enormous 250-point reduction to enemy Defensive Ability. On a critical hit, it also has up to a 20% chance to reduce the cooldown of Rip and Tear by 0.8 seconds.
As you can see, Werewolf form is terrifyingly powerful when building around Bleeding DoTs.
However, as I will explain later, it also suffers from one extremely serious weakness.
Wereraven
Wereraven attacks deal either Pierce and Cold damage or Pierce and Chaos damage, allowing it to attack and crowd-control large groups of enemies at the same time.
Its arsenal includes Ice Talons, a Pierce-and-Cold attack with a range of 10.5 meters, as well as Cold Snap. Cold Snap launches eight piercing ice projectiles in every direction around the caster, dealing Pierce, Cold, and Frostburn damage while also inflicting Freeze.
Its modifier, Glacial Talons, extends the range of Ice Talons even further. It also adds Cold damage and Frostburn damage over time, while reducing the target’s Total Speed by as much as 50%—yes, 50%!?
Everwinter further increases Pierce, Cold, and Chaos damage while boosting both the damage and duration of Frostburn. It also grants a 10% chance on attack to reduce the cooldown of Cold Snap by 0.8 seconds.
Heart of Asterkarn, an exclusive skill that boosts Cold and Frostburn damage, also increases Offensive Ability, making critical hits easier to achieve.
Onslaught can also gain additional Frostburn damage from Icebound, a Tier 8 Berserker skill. This allows Wereraven to employ the same kind of multi-layered DoT strategy as Werewolf, only with Frostburn instead of Bleeding.
The biggest difference from Werewolf is that both transformed skills capable of inflicting Frostburn can hit enemies from long range. This gives Wereraven exceptional kiting potential.
Neither Icebound nor Onslaught is restricted to a particular weapon type. You can therefore use a firearm to build Onslaught stacks from a safe distance, then unleash an amplified Cold Snap to spread Frostburn in every direction.
Its weakness is the same as Werewolf’s: the difficulty of making ADCtH function effectively, which I will discuss below.
The Biggest Weakness of Transformation-Focused Builds: ADCtH Is Difficult to Use
Transformation skills have enormous potential, but require delicate character building and careful play because it is difficult to make ADCtH—Attack Damage Converted to Health—function properly.
Neither Bleeding nor Frostburn, despite their extremely high damage potential, is eligible for ADCtH.
As a result, making ADCtH work in Werewolf form requires equipment and Devotion setups that emphasize Pierce or Chaos damage. This makes it difficult to fully specialize in Bleeding damage.
Wereraven-exclusive skills do not feature Weapon Damage scaling at all. To make ADCtH function, you must therefore equip items that add the necessary skill modifiers, use Devotion skills that provide their own ADCtH, or attack through Devotion skills that include Weapon Damage scaling.
Werewolf builds must invest resources into damage types other than Bleeding, despite Bleeding being their greatest weapon. Wereraven builds, meanwhile, must force ADCtH to function less efficiently than it would for a more specialized build, often while restricting their equipment choices in the process.
Because of this, builds centered around transformation skills tend to fall into the following playstyle:
Build up as many Onslaught stacks as possible, land one enormous DoT attack, then run around while rebuilding your Onslaught stacks.
It is difficult to put into words, but…
Anyone expecting to play a fearless Berserker who boldly charges into the enemy may feel that something is deeply wrong when they instead find themselves constantly running away while waiting for DoTs to finish everything off.
For the sake of completeness, the Berserker itself does have two recovery skills:
- Battle Surge, which provides Health regeneration whenever you land a critical hit
- Rallying Cry, which restores Health and provides buffs in a manner similar to Blood of Dreeg or Pneumatic Burst
To secure sufficient survivability, a Berserker therefore needs measures such as:
- Increasing the number of critical hits by stacking Offensive Ability bonuses, Defensive Ability reduction, and persistent debuffs or attacks capable of repeatedly triggering critical hits
- Using cooldown reduction to activate healing skills and recovery-focused Devotion skills more frequently
- Accepting that investing the necessary skill and Devotion points into these tools will narrow the range of viable build options
These compromises are likely to be essential when building around transformation skills.
The Berserker’s Attacks Outside of Wereform
Dual Wielding and Bleeding Damage
Implements of War or Frenzied Cry allows the Berserker to dual wield.
At maximum rank, Implements of War adds 219 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds to your dual-wield attacks, increases Bleeding Damage by 85%, and grants an 18% chance for Onslaught charges not to be consumed.
Implements of War provides 219 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds, while Open Wounds, the modifier for Onslaught, adds another 633 over 3 seconds.
Combined, that works out to the equivalent of 284 Bleeding Damage per second delivered through your default weapon attacks. That is actually near the 325 Bleeding Damage per second dealt by Rend from the Huntress devotion.
Being able to dish out that kind of damage with ordinary attacks is honestly pretty wild.
Two Weapon Pool Skills
Bloodfangs delivers a double strike dealing 90% Weapon Damage, 86 Pierce Damage, and 336 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds. When used with a ranged weapon, the projectiles also pass through enemies.
Avalanche deals 120% Weapon Damage, 64 Pierce Damage, and 64 Cold Damage. It can reach targets up to 10 meters away—the same range as Forcewave.
That is more than enough reach for a melee build, but it feels just slightly too short when building around ranged attacks.
Leap: The Berserker’s Cooldown Attack Skill
Leap is the Berserker’s only attack skill with a cooldown.
It has a three-second cooldown and causes the character to jump to a designated location, dealing damage around the landing point.
With its modifier, Fault Line, also maxed out, Leap can deliver:
- A 6.9-meter area of effect
- 265% Weapon Damage, including off-hand Weapon Damage
- 105 Physical Damage
- 293 Pierce Damage
- 1,245 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
- Eight spikes launched outward from the landing point, each with a 100% chance to pass through enemies
Its Weapon Damage scaling is fairly modest, but it makes up for this with an enormous area of effect and extremely high Bleeding damage.
At first glance, the obvious strategy seems to be building up as many Onslaught stacks as possible, then using Leap to spread massive Bleeding damage across a wide area.
Unfortunately, the skill is extremely awkward to use with a gamepad.
Even when you have an enemy targeted, the character will sometimes leap in a completely unrelated direction. To make matters worse, Leap deals no damage whatsoever while you are airborne.
My opinion of the skill would be completely different if it could target enemies directly like Blitz, or if the movement itself dealt damage like Vire’s Might…
This becomes especially frustrating with a melee build using axes or swords with large amounts of Bleeding damage and Bleeding Duration. You move into close range, carefully build up a full set of Onslaught stacks—and then consume them by launching yourself off in some completely random direction.
Leap’s movement also feels oddly unreliable.
Sometimes you land perfectly inside a narrow gap between two objects, leaving you trapped and unable to move until the enemies kill you. Other times, you can jump over changes in elevation to create unexpected shortcuts—or somehow pass straight through a wall and land in the next room.
The skill can feel rather unsettling to use.
Players who primarily use a mouse may come away with a very different impression… perhaps.
Berserker Defensive Tools
When maxed out, the Berserker’s defensive skills provide the following benefits:
- Open Wounds, the modifier for Onslaught, reduces the target’s damage by 20%.
- Untamed Rage grants 33% Damage Absorption when your Health falls below 50%. It has a 5-second recharge and lasts for 5 seconds. It also increases Offensive Ability by 20%.
- While transformed, taking damage has a 40% chance to extend the duration of Untamed Rage by 1 second, up to a maximum extension of 10 seconds.
- Voracity provides 28% Attack Damage Converted to Health while in Werewolf form.
- Glacial Talons inflicts 50% Total Speed Reduction while in Wereraven form.
- Amatok’s Pact grants +240 Defensive Ability and +192 Armor.
- Icebound provides +30% Acid and Poison Resistance and +30% Vitality Resistance.
- Rallying Cry instantly restores up to 30% of your Health. If you take Frenzied Cry and dual-wield, its cooldown is reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. Taking its modifier, Impulse, also grants up to 25% Trap and Slow Resistance.
- Battle Surge has a 100% chance to activate on a critical hit, regenerating 14% of your Health per second for 3 seconds. It has a 3-second recharge and also increases Energy Regeneration by 17.
The instant heal from Rallying Cry is certainly welcome, and the Berserker’s durability rises dramatically once its Health falls low enough to trigger Untamed Rage.
Considering that every critical hit has a 100% chance to trigger the healing effect, building around critical hits is extremely important—or rather, landing crits is practically the build’s lifeline.
Using wide-area persistent skills that can roll for critical hits every second—such as the Berserker’s own Rallying Cry or the Occultist’s Curse of Frailty—can greatly increase the expected frequency of critical hits.
Rallying Cry and Vulnerability are especially effective because they also reduce enemy Defensive Ability. Against a group of mobs within their area of effect, there is a good chance that at least one enemy will be critically hit on each tick, allowing you to maintain a reliable source of Health recovery.
The problem is that Damage Absorption does absolutely nothing until your Health falls to 50% of its maximum. You therefore need some way to survive until reaching that threshold—and once you get there, you still have to either recover your lost Health or find a way to stabilize around the 50% mark.
As explained earlier, builds centered around the Berserker have difficulty making effective use of ADCtH. This makes it important to force critical hits by any means necessary to trigger its healing effect and slow the rate at which your Health drops, rely on DoTs while focusing entirely on evasion, or compensate through your secondary mastery.
Even with these measures, however, there are still many situations where you take enough burst damage to be killed outright before Wild Rage can activate.
The Berserker excels at dual-wielding, but doing so prevents you from using Menhir’s Bulwark, which requires either a shield or a two-handed weapon.
Pairing Berserker with Shaman for Primal Bond—an exclusive skill that provides Damage Absorption and bonuses to Bleeding—creates another problem: it becomes difficult to secure enough Offensive Ability, which in turn makes the Berserker’s critical-hit-based healing less reliable.
Choosing the right secondary mastery is therefore an extremely difficult balancing act.
Berserker Mobility
Rallying Cry grants +18% Movement Speed.
That is a substantial speed boost.
Berserker Resistance Reduction
Bonechilling Cry reduces enemy Defensive Ability by up to 124, while lowering the resistances of enemies across a wide area by:
- 30% Pierce Resistance
- 25% Cold Resistance
- 25% Chaos Resistance
- 40% Bleeding Resistance
Its greatest strength is its all-in-one utility: a single cast can reduce resistance to every damage type naturally supported by the Berserker’s own attacks.
Its biggest drawback is its relatively long six-second cooldown.
You could argue that the downtime is easier to tolerate if you are constantly kiting while your DoTs wear the enemy down… but perhaps that is stretching a little too far in an attempt to defend it.
At the very least, it remains usable while transformed, so there is no need to worry about that.
Berserker Exclusive Skills
Bloodborne
At maximum level, Bloodborne provides:
- 90 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
- +35% Critical Damage
- +135% Piercing Damage
- +135% Chaos Damage
- +135% Bleeding Damage
- +75% Bleeding Duration
- +20% Healing Effects
It covers three of the Berserker’s four main damage types—Bleeding, Piercing, and Chaos—while also boosting the mastery’s numerous self-healing effects.
It further increases the Critical Damage that forms one of the Berserker’s defining strengths.
Because it boosts Bleeding damage, works with Chaos damage, and can be combined with Recklessness’s enormous Defensive Ability reduction, it appears to have particularly strong synergy with Werewolf.
To be fair, Wereraven can also use Talons of Ch’thon to convert 100% of its Cold damage into Chaos damage.
However, Frostburn has no corresponding Chaos DoT to convert into, so keep in mind that taking this modifier reduces Wereraven’s effectiveness as a kiting build.
Heart of Asterkarn
- 39–48 Cold Damage
- +135% Cold Damage
- +135% Frostburn Damage
- +75% Frostburn Duration
- 15% Physical Damage converted to Cold Damage
- +14% Offensive Ability
- 25% Slow Resistance
This exclusive skill specializes heavily in Cold damage, boosting Offensive Ability instead of Critical Damage.
Since critical hits trigger the Health recovery from Battle Surge, this skill is better suited to improving stability through that synergy than simply increasing raw damage.
The Slow Resistance is, of course, also very welcome.
This is an excellent exclusive skill for the Cold-focused Wereraven form. Unfortunately, it provides no bonus to Pierce damage, and since Wereraven’s attack skills deal Pierce rather than Physical damage, they cannot benefit from this skill’s damage conversion.
As one commenter on this article pointed out, pierce-to-cold conversion is available on little more than the Spectral Longsword, meaning your gear options become extremely limited if you want to bring out Wereraven’s full potential.
Choosing a Second Mastery
Which Cooldown Attacks Synergize with Berserker?
Among the masteries with attack skills that have cooldowns, I picked out the ones that deal Cold, Bleeding, Piercing, or Chaos damage—the four types that naturally synergize with Berserker.
All skills are compared with every modifier raised to its maximum level.
Soldier Cooldown Attacks
Soldier has two relevant attacks:
- Blade Arc
- Forcewave
With the Clean Sweep modifier, Blade Arc becomes an attack with a cooldown and can deal:
- 405% Weapon Damage
- 1,653 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
That comes to 551 Bleeding Damage per second, giving it the highest Bleeding output among cooldown-based mastery attacks.
Forcewave
Requires a shield or two-handed melee weapon
With every modifier maxed, Forcewave deals:
- 285% Weapon Damage
- 688–746 Physical Damage
- +25% Critical Damage
- +175% All Damage
- 573–750 Internal Trauma Damage over 3 seconds
- 603 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
- +20% Attack Speed
Because of its equipment restriction, using Forcewave means giving up the Berserker’s dual-wielding setup.
Physical damage also makes up a large proportion of its output, so in that respect it does not mesh particularly well with Berserker either.
Nightblade Cooldown Attacks
Amarasta’s Blade Burst
With a 1.8-second recharge:
- 230% Weapon Damage
- 381–413 Cold Damage
- 410 Frostburn Damage
- 5-meter circular area
Shadow Strike
With a 3.5-second recharge:
- 440% Weapon Damage
- 410 Piercing Damage
- 410 Cold Damage
This is primarily a single-target skill.
Taking Nightfall causes an additional area attack to trigger, but that area damage is treated separately from Shadow Strike for skill modifiers and damage conversion. That could make it more difficult to scale.
Blade Trap
A deployable attack with a two-second recharge:
- 98 Piercing Damage
- 248 Bleeding Damage over 2 seconds
- -35% Defensive Ability
- 181 Vitality Damage
- +98% Piercing Damage
- +124% Vitality Damage
- 70% Attack Damage Converted to Health
The Defensive Ability reduction only applies while the enemy is caught in the trap, and bosses tend to break free almost immediately.
The Health conversion is enormous, but the skill’s actual damage is quite restrained.
Well, it is a trap, after all.
The assassins in Diablo II? Those people are professional trap masters. Best not to think too hard about it.
Phantasmal Blades
Phantasmal Blades has a three-second recharge and throws five knives in a fan.
All five knives can hit the same enemy. Note that their Bleeding damage does not stack.
The following values are for a single knife:
- 85% Weapon Damage
- 165–210 Piercing Damage
- 825 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
- 157 Cold Damage
- 125–156 Chaos Damage
- 135 Vitality Damage
- +40% Critical Damage
- 10% Attack Damage Converted to Health
- 100% Chance to Pass Through Enemies
- +100% Bleeding Damage
- +40% Bleeding Duration
With all five knives hitting the same target:
- 425% Weapon Damage
- 825–1,050 Piercing Damage
- 825 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
- 785 Cold Damage
- 625–780 Chaos Damage
- 675 Vitality Damage
- +40% Critical Damage
- 10% Attack Damage Converted to Health
- 100% Chance to Pass Through Enemies
- +100% Bleeding Damage
- +40% Bleeding Duration
Its paper statistics are overflowing with romance.
The concerns are that its damage is split across far too many types and that it requires a huge number of skill points.
Still, Piercing, Cold, Chaos, and Bleeding are all damage types supported by the Berserker. Vitality is the only part that the mastery has no obvious way to boost.
Demolitionist Cooldown Attacks
By taking High Potency and turning Blackwater Cocktail into a cooldown skill, it can deal:
- 112–200 Chaos Damage
However, Fire still accounts for a larger share of its damage than Chaos.
Blackwater Cocktail is also fundamentally a debuff skill designed to reduce resistance and Offensive Ability, so it probably cannot be relied upon as a major damage source.
Grenado, Canister Bomb, Mortar Trap, and the other obvious Demolitionist cooldown attacks all use incompatible damage types, so I have omitted them.
Arcanist Cooldown Attacks
Olexra’s Flash Freeze
Olexra’s Flash Freeze affects a 16-meter area and applies the following effects for 4.5 seconds:
- 114 Cold Damage per second
- 318 Frostburn Damage over 3 seconds
- -100% Fire Resistance
- 50% Reduced Total Speed
- -40% Physical Resistance
- -35% Freeze Duration Reduction
Its modifier further increases the skill’s Cold damage by 74%.
Like Blackwater Cocktail, this skill is primarily a debuff outside of the very early game rather than a source of damage.
Reducing Fire Resistance does not help much when Berserker has no Fire attacks to begin with.
Shaman Cooldown Attacks
Primal Strike
Requires a two-handed weapon
Three-second recharge.
Against enemies within 4.4 meters:
- 355% Weapon Damage
- 387–516 Lightning Damage
- 804 Electrocute Damage over 3 seconds
- 430 Bleeding Damage over 2 seconds
- 2.6–4.0 seconds of Stun
- +96% Physical Damage
- +96% Bleeding Damage
- +100% Bleeding Duration
Because Primal Strike requires a two-handed weapon, you would have to give up the Berserker’s dual-wielding setup.
It might still be possible to dual wield while using Stormrend, though…
Grasping Vines
Grasping Vines has a 1.2-second recharge and creates thorny vines across a 7.5-meter area.
Enemies touching them receive:
- 71 Physical Damage
- 71 Bleeding Damage over 1 second
- 75% Reduced Movement Speed
- 174 Vitality Decay Damage over 2 seconds
- 30% chance to become Immobilized for 1.5 seconds
- 35% Reduced Attack Speed for 2 seconds
- 9% Retaliation Damage Added to Attack
- +100% Physical Damage
- +100% Bleeding Damage
The Physical and RAtA portions hit twice per second, and those parts of the damage accumulate when multiple patches of vines overlap.
However, the Bleeding damage—the part the Berserker would most want—does not stack.
Also note that the Berserker has no means whatsoever of producing or increasing RAtA.
Necromancer Cooldown Attacks
Bone Harvest
Bone Harvest has a three-second recharge and hits an area up to nine meters away.
It deals:
- 335% Weapon Damage
- 145 Piercing Damage
- 234 Cold Damage
- 234 Vitality Damage
- 966 Vitality Decay Damage over 3 seconds
- 45% Reduced Movement Speed for 3 seconds
- 35% chance to Confuse targets for 2 seconds
- +175% All Damage
After hitting with Bone Harvest, you receive the following bonuses for eight seconds:
- +76 Cold Damage
- +88 Vitality Damage
- +87% Cold Damage
- +87% Frostburn Damage
- +87% Vitality Damage
- +87% Vitality Decay Damage
This could be a very strong candidate for a build focused on Cold and Piercing damage.
If you give up dual wielding and equip a two-handed weapon, Harvester of Death reduces the attack’s range by three meters but grants:
- 20% Total Damage Modified
- 100% Physical Damage converted to Cold Damage
Ill Omen
Five-second recharge.
- Five-second duration
- Three contagion targets
- Maximum of 20 contagion targets
- 87 Cold Damage
- 117 Vitality Decay Damage per second
- 30% Reduced Movement Speed
- 25% Reduced Target’s Damage
Its main purpose is debuffing rather than dealing damage, but I have included it for completeness.
Because it is a contagious, persistent skill, it could be useful for generating critical hits that trigger Battle Surge’s healing.
Then again, do we really want Ill Omen’s damage consuming Onslaught stacks?
I am not so sure about that.
Inquisitor Attacks with Cooldowns
Rune of Hagarrad
With all of its modifiers fully invested, Rune of Hagarrad has a 2.5-second cooldown and allows you to place up to five runes at once. When an enemy approaches, each rune launches a volley of projectiles.
A rune disappears after firing its projectiles. It will also expire naturally if 30 seconds pass after it is placed without being triggered.
Each individual rune can deliver:
- 224 Pierce Damage, with a +98% damage modifier, multiplied across eight overlapping projectiles
- 245 Cold Damage, with a +98% damage modifier, multiplied across eight overlapping projectiles
- 696 Frostburn Damage over 3 seconds, with a +98% damage modifier; Frostburn inflicted by separate runes can stack
- 32% Reduced Attack Speed for 5 seconds
- A 43% chance to Freeze targets for 2 seconds
- A 250-point reduction to enemy Defensive Ability for 5 seconds
- +20% Critical Damage
- 12% Total Damage Modified
These are extremely attractive numbers for a trap-laying caster. Since the skill also inflicts a massive reduction to enemy Defensive Ability, it has excellent synergy with the Health recovery triggered by Battle Surge whenever you land a critical hit.
The main problem is that Aura of Censure—the Inquisitor’s source of Cold and Elemental Resistance Reduction—is an exclusive skill, meaning that it competes directly with Heart of Asterkarn.
You could avoid that conflict by focusing primarily on Pierce damage instead. However, doing so would undermine one of Rune of Hagarrad’s greatest advantages: the ability to stack Frostburn damage from multiple runes using the same skill.
Admittedly, that is a rather luxurious problem to have…
Recap: Berserker’s Own Cooldown Attacks
Leap is the Berserker’s only regular attack skill with a cooldown.
It has a three-second recharge. With its modifier Fault Line also maxed out, it can reach:
The skill can cover a 6.9-meter radius and deliver:
- 265% Weapon Damage
- 105 Physical Damage
- 293 Pierce Damage
- 1,245 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
- Eight projectiles, each with a 100% chance to pass through enemies
Rip and Tear, available only in Werewolf form, has a 4-second recharge and reaches up to 14 meters.
At maximum level, it deals:
- 295% Weapon Damage
- 375 Piercing Damage
- 810 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds, or 270 per second
Cold Snap, available only in Wereraven form, fires eight piercing projectiles with a 2.8-second recharge.
At maximum level, it deals:
- 351 Piercing Damage
- 452 Cold Damage
- 1080 Frostburn Damage over 3 seconds, or 360 per second
Which Masteries Have Resistance Reduction That Synergizes with Berserker?
The Berserker already looks like a rather busy mastery.
You have default attacks, cooldown skills, and transformations to manage. On top of that, stopping your attacks also stops your Onslaught stack generation and lowers your DPS.
Ideally, we want resistance reduction that activates automatically.
Here, I’ll compare the masteries capable of reducing resistance to the Berserker’s four main damage types:
- Cold
- Piercing
- Bleeding
- Chaos
Demolitionist Resistance Reduction
Hellfire Mine reduces Chaos Resistance by 35%.
Thermite Mine reduces Elemental Resistance, including Cold, by 30%.
Both require you to stop attacking in order to deploy them.
Demolitionist has no way to reduce Piercing or Bleeding Resistance.
That makes it difficult to call this an especially good fit for either Werewolf or Wereraven.
Occultist Resistance Reduction
Curse of Frailty and its modifier Vulnerability can reduce:
- Elemental Resistance, including Cold
- Bleeding Resistance
- Physical Resistance
- Chaos Resistance
They cannot reduce Piercing Resistance.
Because Curse of Frailty is an active skill, you also have to stop attacking each time you cast it.
Taking Blight of Ch’thon converts 100% of Werewolf form’s Piercing damage into Chaos, allowing you to reduce resistance to every damage type used by the form.
In Wereraven form, however, the Piercing damage remains unconverted.
This makes Occultist particularly well suited to Werewolf. It also supports Wereraven reasonably well aside from Piercing, although the need to interrupt your attacks whenever you apply resistance reduction puts it at something of a disadvantage.
Its wide area of effect, long duration, ability to roll for critical hits and Devotion skill activation every second, and the Defensive Ability reduction provided by Vulnerability all synergize extremely well.
This makes it an excellent all-rounder that can trigger healing from Battle Surge while also activating Devotion skills for additional attacks and healing effects.
Inquisitor Resistance Reduction
Death Sentence reduces:
- Piercing Resistance by 25%
- Chaos Resistance by 25%
Aura of Censure reduces Elemental Resistance, including Cold, by 25%.
Aura of Censure continuously applies its debuff around the player, so it requires almost no additional input.
Inquisitor cannot reduce Bleeding Resistance, so it seems more suitable for a Wereraven build.
Nightblade Resistance Reduction
Night’s Chill creates an aura that reduces both Cold and Pierce Resistance by 25%.
Since the resistance reduction comes from an aura, you can keep attacking without ever having to stop and manually apply it.
Nightblade has no resistance reduction for Bleeding or Chaos, while its Pierce and Cold resistance reduction lines up perfectly with Wereraven’s damage types. That sounds like an ideal match—until you notice that the aura only has a 6-meter radius.
For Wereraven, which is designed to fight as a ranged caster, losing the ability to kite enemies from a safe distance is a significant drawback.
Shaman Resistance Reduction
Raging Tempest reduces Elemental Resistance, including Cold, by 30%.
Because the debuff is automatically applied by Wind Devil, it is extremely convenient.
Devouring Swarm reduces Bleeding Resistance by 35%.
However, you have to stop attacking in order to cast it.
Shaman cannot reduce Piercing or Chaos Resistance.
For Wereraven, the ability to reduce Cold Resistance without interrupting your attacks is a clear advantage.
Its Bleeding Resistance reduction is substantial, but having to stop attacking makes it slightly less attractive for Werewolf.
Primal Strike mainly deals Lightning and Bleeding damage, so combining it with Wereraven makes me want to try some kind of Elemental and Bleeding hybrid build.
But would that spread the damage types too thin?
Probably.
Necromancer Resistance Reduction
1.5-second recharge, 5.0-second duration, and a 4.0-meter radius.
It provides no reduction to Piercing, Bleeding, or Chaos Resistance, making it better suited to Wereraven builds.
Because it rolls for a critical hit every second, it can also be used to trigger the healing effect of Battle Surge.
Oathkeeper Resistance Reduction
Celestial Presence reduces:
- Elemental Resistance, including Cold, by 25%
- Bleeding Resistance by 25%
The invulnerable, player-scaled pets automatically spread the resistance-reduction debuff, so you do not have to stop attacking.
As an additional bonus, assigning Frostburn- or Bleeding-based Devotion skills—other than Rend—to the Guardians allows their damage-over-time effects to stack.
That opens the door to a multi-layered DoT strategy.
Oathkeeper has no way to reduce Piercing or Chaos Resistance.
Even so, it appears compatible with both Werewolf and Wereraven.
Quick Compatibility Table by Transformation
Because continuously attacking is important for generating Onslaught stacks, I rated masteries more highly when their resistance reduction does not force you to stop attacking.
| Second Mastery | Werewolf | Wereraven |
|---|---|---|
| Demolitionist | △ | △ |
| Occultist | ◎ | ○ |
| Inquisitor | △ | ◎ |
| Nightblade | ○ | ◎◎◎ |
| Shaman | ○ | ◎ |
| Necromancer | × | ◎ |
| Oathkeeper | ◎ | ◎ |
In terms of how easy their resistance reduction is to apply and maintain, Shaman, Inquisitor, Nightblade, Necromancer, and Oathkeeper all look like promising choices for a secondary Mastery.
Occultist can also reduce resistance to every damage type used by Werewolf form by taking advantage of its Piercing-to-Chaos conversion. However, this benefit is exclusive to Werewolf form.
Nightblade appears almost perfectly suited to a specialized Wereraven setup.
Oathkeeper, meanwhile, supports both Bleeding-focused Werewolf builds and Cold-focused Wereraven builds.
That versatility is a big deal.
Which Masteries Have WPS That Synergize with Berserker?
Onslaught is a default attack replacer, so it naturally synergizes with Weapon Pool Skills.
Here, I narrowed the selection down to masteries with WPS that deal Piercing, Cold, Bleeding, or Chaos damage.
Nightblade WPS
Belgothian’s Shears
- 143% Weapon Damage
- 38 Piercing Damage
- 56–88 Physical Damage
Amarasta’s Quick Cut
- 110% Weapon Damage
- 68 Piercing Damage
- +35% Critical Damage
Whirling Death
- 135% Weapon Damage
- 80 Piercing Damage
- 327 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
Execution
- 265% Weapon Damage
- 110 Cold Damage
- 23% Reduction to Enemy’s Health
Dual Blades, the prerequisite for these skills, also grants:
- 66 flat Piercing Damage
- +60% Cold Damage
- +106% Piercing Damage
- +20% Armor
Nightblade has the largest number of WPS whose damage types align with the Berserker.
Shaman WPS
Feral Hunger
- 180% Weapon Damage
- 204 Bleeding Damage over 2 seconds
- Up to 33% ADCtH
Upheaval
- 140% Weapon Damage
- 348 Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
- 74 Lightning Damage
- Activates only on critical hits
Necromancer WPS
Necrotic Edge
- 155% Weapon Damage
- 92 Cold Damage
Inquisitor WPS
Chilling Rounds
- 90% Weapon Damage
- 41 Piercing Damage
- 41 Cold Damage
- 339 Frostburn Damage over 3 seconds
Which Masteries Have Cooldown Reduction?
If the entire game plan is to build Onslaught stacks and spend them on cooldown attacks, a mastery with cooldown reduction becomes very tempting.
Be warned that both of the cooldown-reduction skills listed here are exclusive skills.
Arcanist Cooldown Reduction
Star Pact
Exclusive skill
- 102 Frostburn Damage over 3 seconds
- +135% Cold Damage
- +135% Frostburn Damage
- +135% Lightning Damage
- +135% Electrocute Damage
- 15% Physical Damage converted to Cold Damage
- 40% Aether Damage converted to Cold Damage
- 10% Cooldown Reduction
For a Cold-focused caster build that fights in Wereraven form, Star Pact can simultaneously increase damage and reduce cooldowns.
Onslaught itself adds up to 66 flat Cold Damage, while Avalanche adds 101 Cold Damage, so the build would still have Cold-based attacks available outside of Wereraven form.
Compared with Heart of Asterkarn, Star Pact adds Frostburn rather than flat Cold damage.
Heart of Asterkarn also offers:
- +14% Offensive Ability
Arcanist can raise Offensive Ability by another 12% with Inner Focus. The additional Spirit also increases Cold damage and Energy.
There is an incredible amount of potential here for a caster-style Berserker and Arcanist combination.
Oathkeeper Cooldown Reduction
Path of the Three
Exclusive skill
- 150 Poison Damage over 5 seconds
- +135% Acid Damage
- +135% Vitality Damage
- +135% Poison Damage
- +135% Vitality Decay Damage
- +75% Poison Duration
- 15% Physical Damage converted to Acid Damage
- 40% Fire Damage converted to Acid Damage
- 10% Cooldown Reduction
Aside from its cooldown reduction, none of its damage bonuses naturally support a Berserker-focused build.
It might still be useful in a build that invests only in the Onslaught portion of Berserker, then uses Aegis of Thorns to convert the Oathkeeper’s Aegis of Menhir into an Acid-damage skill.
The Berserker’s Three Biggest Problems
First, it has far too many skills with strong synergy, leaving you desperately short on skill points.
Second, both its Health recovery and its methods of triggering percentage-based life steal have unusual requirements. This makes choosing the right secondary mastery and equipment to compensate for those weaknesses extremely difficult.
Third, trying to combine its exceptional aptitude for stacking multiple DoTs with enough defensive support to stabilize its fragile survivability often results in a kiting build that feels like a Berserker in name only.
From a thematic standpoint, that can be rather disappointing.
As a side note, Diablo III—part of the series that helped define the hack-and-slash action RPG genre—is also available on Nintendo Switch.
If you like the idea of hunting for loot from the comfort of your bed—or squeezing in some treasure farming while you’re out and about—it’s definitely worth checking out.
So, enjoy your gaming life!!
And thanks for reading all the way to the end!
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