THOR'S RAINBOWNUKE: off to the Marauder forum

1) CRAVE THE SLAUGHTER. This is a fantastic node overall for end game content. The move speed bonus for not being damaged recently works great when travelling from pack to pack in maps. Then when you do take damage, from fighting packs or single targets, the bonus attack speed helps to ramp up your damage output. Nothing much else to say, this node works great.

2) ASPECT OF CARNAGE. This is the node that defines the berseker, as it is what enables you to bring your dps to an even higher level.Take a look at my 4 power charge and 4 endurance charge discharge damage without any of the damage increasing passive nodes being taken.




This means you can choose to pick the standard damage nodes to achieve the highest possible dps of any ascendancy or you can pick up more defensive passives (in place of the damage passives) and have your damage still be ridiculously high. Both ways work equally well. However, this isnt a purely bonus node, there is a trade off of 10% increased damage taken. This means that things like corpse explosions, voll slams, vessel slams and malachai slams becoming even more deadly. Fortunately, if you have fortify active, you will still take a net 10% reduced damage from hits, but you still need to take some precautions. Overall, you wont really die from more things due to the increased damage taken, as long as you have fortify up. Just make sure to trigger fortify as much as possible and be slightly more mindful of huge sources of incoming damage. In practice, my map clearing speed became faster, yet I did not see myself dying more.

3) PAIN REAVER. This gives a free 2% life leech if you have killed any enemy recently. In generic mapping its great, as you will have almost 100% up time on it. This makes this node great for reflect maps as the bonus leech is invaluable for surviving. However, when facing single targets, this node is almost useless. Thankfully, a legacy VoV is more than enough sustain for almost all single target encounters. Honestly speaking though, its a rather consistent mapping survival bonus and it helps to compensate for the increased damage you take from ASPECT OF CARNAGE. Therefore, it is still worth picking up this node.

4) RITE OF RUIN. Frankly speaking, the stun immunity if you have killed recently is rather bad as it makes getting stun locked by bigger bosses almost guaranteed. Fur consistency with single target, you will still run unwavering stance. The reduced damage taken is quite nice, but as the stun immunity is wasted, its more worthwhile to pick up PAIN REAVER.

5) CLOAKED IN SAVAGERY. Avoid this node, as you will never trigger this effect as a low-life ES build. The effect only works if 20% of your life (not ES) gets removed in a single hit.

6) WAR BRINGER. Avoid this as well. We do not use war cries and the life and mana recovery is useless for low-life.

Overall, as long as you can play with some level of caution and awareness, you will be able to maximize the benefit of the berseker, which is unprecedented damage output. In practice, a seasoned player can take down Core Malachai with no issues. (I died thrice though :P) The increased damage taken doesnt really mean much at the end of the day. You will still die to the same things like malchai slam, with or without ASPECT OF CARNAGE. The main difference is, you will be pounding the boss into the ground even faster as a berserker. Thus the Berseker is an extremely strong ascendancy that greatly raises the damage ceiling of this build. However, I would still recommend this Ascendancy for more advanced players, as the skill floor is somewhat higher.

- Top Tier Damage Dealer for Experienced Players