Berserk

A powerful but reckless attack that increases damage and attack rating but decreases defense.

Berserk is a Barbarian Combat Skill (level 30, requires Concentrate). It is a single melee attack whose whole weapon damage is turned into magic damage (the row's calc4 is 100 with EType "mag"), with the tree's largest damage and attack-rating bonuses, paid for with your defense: every swing sets it to −100% for a short time. The numbers are +150% damage at level 1 and +435% at level 20, and a debuff of 2.72 seconds at level 1 that shrinks toward one second as the skill levels. It costs 4 mana.

The numbers

The damage bonus is skills.txt Param1 (150) plus Param2 (15) a level: +150% at level 1, +435% at level 20, +585% at level 30; it reads lvl. Hard points in Howl and Battle Orders each add 10% (Param8, blvl); the Basin's page notes the second synergy was Shout in the original game and is Battle Orders in Resurrected, which the table confirms.

The attack-rating bonus is ToHit 100 plus LevToHit 15 a level: +100% at level 1, +385% at level 20.

The defense debuff lasts Param4 (75 frames) minus a diminishing-returns share of Param4 − Param3 (50 frames) that grows with level, so it shrinks: 2.72 seconds at level 1, 2.0 at level 5, 1.32 at level 20, 1.2 at level 30 and never below Param3, 25 frames, one second. While it runs the row's aura stat armor_override_percent is −100 and its damageresist stat is Param5, 0. Mana is a flat 4.

How it works

Berserk rolls Chance to Hit with the bonus above and, on a hit, deals weapon damage with the +% added to your other Enhanced Damage, then converts all of it to magic. The Basin's page sets the order: the conversion happens after +% damage and after a mastery, Critical Strike or Deadly Strike double, and before resistance, so the hit ignores physical resistance and physical immunity and meets the target's magic resistance instead. See Magic Damage.

Because nothing physical is left, the Basin says Berserk returns no life or mana through Life Leech, Mana Leech or Life Tap, and takes no damage from Thorns, Iron Maiden or Spirit of Barbs. Crushing Blow and Open Wounds are not mentioned by the page; leech is the loss that matters.

The debuff is applied on the swing, hit or miss. The Basin says it is applied after +% defense but before Defense vs. Melee and Defense vs. Missile, so those two bonuses are all the defense you keep, and that when attacking continuously the duration is reset long before it runs out: a Berserker effectively has no defense while fighting.

Synergies and +skills

• Howl: +10% magic damage per hard point (Param8).
• Battle Orders: +10% magic damage per hard point (Param8).

Both read blvl. Berserk's own damage, attack-rating and duration lines read lvl, so +skills from items raise the damage and attack rating and shorten the debuff a little. Berserk feeds Concentrate and Frenzy: each hard point converts 1% of their damage to magic. A weapon mastery adds its attack rating and damage, and its critical hit doubles the damage before the conversion, so it doubles the magic hit.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player. The defense debuff is applied to you regardless. The Basin's page says nothing more about Berserk against players.

Build notes

• Level 20 is +435% magic damage and +385% attack rating for 4 mana; each +skill adds 15% and 15%.
• Battle Orders is 10% a point and every Barbarian takes it; Howl is the other 10% a point.
• No leech: life has to come from elsewhere on a build that leans on Berserk, and defense is gone while you swing, so the skill is usually the answer to physical immunes rather than the main attack.