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  #1  
Old 10-25-2009, 05:39 AM
Burba Burba is offline
 

Join Date: Jul 2007
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Default Berserk

Berserk is a skill I've always wondered about and now that it's working I've decided to look into it further. All I've heard about it from other players is that the spell increases strength. The website has a couple of interesting things to say about it's affects, that it "dramatically improves your combat abilities" and that "your skill level determines your strength, speed, and chance of bungling spells." The negatives of berserk are not being able to see hp and an increased chance of bungling spells. Berserk lasts for a certain duration and has a cool down period before it can be used again. So there are some things to test here. How much does it increase strength, what combat abilities does it affect (speed? attack speed or movement speed?), and what are the duration and cool down times.

I tested berserk up to four points with a level 21 human adventurer. He had 12 points of strength. No increase with 1 berserk, 1 strength with 2 berserk, 1 strength with 3 berserk, 2 strength with 4 berserk. I believe it increases strength by 1 point for every 2 levels of berserk. I'm not positive about the duration and cool down for the first 2 levels of berserk but for 3 the duration is 3 minutes and cool down 12 minutes, and for 4 the duration is 3 minutes 30 seconds and the cool down 11 minutes.

Lastly I'll deal with my tests on it's killing effectiveness. My character has 20 axe, 12 strength, and 28 dodging (I've heard this increases attack speed, but I don't know). I tested whether berserk increases attack speed or other offensive abilities by timing how long it took for enormous spiders to run away in the spider pits around Minath. This isn't a precise method of testing, but it should give a decent approximation. I first used a diamond axe and 2 berserk. I only killed a few spiders before berserk wore off, but the times were close to the baseline, ~14 seconds. Then my axe broke, so I switched to a regular battle axe with 4 berserk. The increased duration let me test longer this time. Without berserk it consistently took me ~19 seconds to kill enormous cave spiders and with berserk it consistently took me ~18 seconds. It's hard to say anything about such a small difference considering the accuracy of this method of testing. It may be entirely accounted for by the strength increase, which should give a +1 bonus to smash damage.

In conclusion, berserk seems, at least at low levels, to be a disappointingly useless skill. If it does increase attack speed, it doesn't increase it notably. The strength bonus is useless for any purpose besides augmenting a low level character's strength. On the other hand, it has very clear disadvantages, namely spell bungling and not being able to see hp. While oratory might not be useful, it at least doesn't bungle my spells and hide my hp. So, unless I'm missing something, I think it's fair to say that oratory is a more worthwhile skill than berserk.
  #2  
Old 10-25-2009, 11:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Burba View Post
So, unless I'm missing something, I think it's fair to say that oratory is a more worthwhile skill than berserk.
I have always said that this was so.
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  #3  
Old 10-26-2009, 01:14 AM
Burba Burba is offline
 

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To be thorough, I decided to test fighting with 10 berserk and compare it to using a strength pot. My results were the same as before, ~19 seconds with strength pot and ~18 seconds for berserk. My sample wasn't large, around 8 fights each, but the results were mostly consistent so I'm confident that berserk isn't doing much, if anything. This is a very disappointing test.
  #4  
Old 10-26-2009, 07:27 PM
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To some, the value in Beserk is the increased movement speed. Is that a significant improvement with the points you have invested in the skill?
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  #5  
Old 10-27-2009, 02:28 AM
Burba Burba is offline
 

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Yeah, the movement speed part didn't interest me, but I tested it out (didn't bother trying to quantify) and there was a notable improvement.
  #6  
Old 10-27-2009, 11:18 PM
Fergy Fergy is offline
 

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The spell is awesome. . . for certain builds. The strength part maxes out at 10 for 20 fire. So. . .

Loss:
10 skills
Cant see Health
Bungling

Gain:
90% fire resist
Super fast speed
Strong Shield spell
Strong Flame blade

Can't see health is partially negated by Mana shield.
Bungling is negated by melee + decent lasting resists.

Build a char around it, and you can see how strong it can be.

btw: It doesn't increase attack speed. (and prismatic shield seems to do more fire damage than flame shield)
...

I had a hydra half-mage that used to use it all the time (before going full mage). I would use it to clear the first 15-20 lvls of rds (very fast). I was pretty weak in pk, but it did scare some to see a hydra that fast in BR.

To help quantify speed, in cobra form (25 fire berserk, flying amulet), I was faster than a human wearing lightning boots, 2 rings of mine race, (forgot other gear).

(Could make an awesome pk duo with a human mage and hydra monk. Resist & berzerk cast on hydra. Mana shield isn't all that bad on hydras. . . (I use it all the time, but I have 400+ mana))
  #7  
Old 10-29-2009, 03:31 PM
Burba Burba is offline
 

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Sure, the spell has it's place since it shares one of the best elements. However, it looks like levels in fire and levels in the skill berserk do the exact same. Why pay double for strength and then suffer additional negatives?

In regards to movement speed, I have not personally found increasing it to provide any practical benefit. If I did need better movement speed, the most reasonable course would probably be to use potions of speed. There may, however, be certain circumstances where increasing movement speed greatly through a skill would come in handy, but it would be odd to build a character around something like that.

On an unrelated topic, you mentioned a stronger flame blade spell. You may already know this, but flame blade changes the damage your weapon normally does to fire damage. The better the flame blade spell is, the more damage is changed to fire. So a better flame blade isn't necessarily better since a lot of creatures are resistant or immune to fire. It is, however, useful, since some creatures are resistant to various weapon damage types. So a weaker flame blade spell is often useful because it allows you to kill certain creatures faster while not rendering you helpless to others.

Last edited by Burba : 10-29-2009 at 03:56 PM.
 


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