What is Berserker in Lost Ark?
The Berserker is one of the most powerful Warrior classes in Lost Ark, especially when compared to the Paladin or Gunlancer. The Berserker deals a massive amount of damage and has high mobility. This is an excellent fit for anyone looking to smash down foes with some tankiness. Much like any other class in the game, there's a lot to learn when mastering the Berserker, so this article will go over a Lost Ark Berserker leveling build and some associated tips to help you reach end-game content faster.
Berserker Leveling Build
Leveling in Lost Ark is simply a stepping stone to understanding the full capacity of your character. However, you can do a few things to optimize your leveling experience. To maximize damage while leveling, you should focus all your skill points on the following skills:
- Finish Strike: Tenacity - Weak Point Detection - Lights Out
- Tempest Slash: Quick Prep - Enhanced Strike - Driving Hit
- Strike Wave: Quick Prep - Cerberus - Blaze Wave
- Red Dust: Quick Prep - Vital Point Hit - Red Wave
- Shoulder Charge: Excellent Mobility
- Whirlwind: Sustain Enhancement
Gameplay:
- As a Berserker, you have a lot of versatile skills that have huge AoEs and high damage. However, your cooldowns are relatively long compared to other classes, so make sure you group up packs of mobs and elites before killing them all at once.
- Finish Strike is your main bread and butter since it can one-hit most of the mobs.
- Shoulder Charge is a must and activates the tripod for mobility to easily traverse around the map and dungeons.
- Tempest Slash is your secondary damage dealer and also helps stagger most of the bosses.
- Once you acquire Red Dust, the burst damage kills bosses even faster during the leveling process.
At level 50 and after clearing the main story questline in Vern, Beatrice will tell you to come visit her in Trixion. Completing all her questlines rewards you with Berserker's Awakening Quest: Chain of Vengeance. Later in the end game, you'll need to complete your second Awakening Wuest to get Berserker Fury.
All-Around Lost Ark Berserker Build
There are two viable builds for Berserker, which are Mayhem and Berserker's Technique. Mayhem build is the more popular path since you don't need to build Fury Meter to enter burst mode. Burst mode increases your damage, attack speed, and movement speed while reducing incoming damage. However, do take note that your HP can never go above 25%, and your shields and healing effectiveness also go down to 25%. That's why Berserkers only use the green-tier HP Potion instead of the more expensive options. But don't worry, with Mayhem on burst mode, you take 65% decreased damage.
Stats Priority
All-Around Build: Split 50/50 of Crit and Swiftness. This is the balance of speed and high-burst damage.
Critical Build: 70% of your stats should be Crit. This build is more about high Crit Rate with some Swiftness. This helps compensate for the loss of the +20% Crit Rate from Burst Mode with Mayhem Berserker. The swiftness gives you movement speed to increase damage while using the Raid Captain Engraving.
Skill Build
- Finish Strike: Tenacity - Weak Point Detection - Lights Out (Gale Wind)
- Tempest Slash: Quick Prep - Weak Point Detection - Driving Hit (Overwhelm)
- Hell Blade: Leap - Deadly Blow - Earth Flip (Gale Wind)
- Chain Sword: Vital Point Hit - Swift Attack Prep - Quick Prep (Gale Wind)
- Strike Wave: Wave - Limit Break - Earth Flip (Galewind)
- Red Dust Sword Storm: Quick Prep - Vital Point Hit - Red Wave (Bleed)
- Sword Storm: Quick Prep - Weak Point Hit Detection - Flame Storm (Overwhelm)
- Awakening: Berserk Fury
Skill Rotations
Short DPS/Stagger Check
Red Dust - Finish Strike - Tempest Slash - Sword Storm
Red Dust is an important skill to cast since it increases damage done to the target by 30% for 6 seconds, followed by one of your high damage and high stagger skill: Finish Strike and Tempest Slash. Your Sword Storm is your last follow-up since it covers a decent distance and helps with your hit and run strategy. This combo is primarily done to bosses with stagger checks such as Alaric in Tier 2 Abyssal Dungeon.
DPS Rotation
Red Dust - Finish Strike - Sword Storm - Hell Blade/Strike Wave
This skill rotation is purely DPS and takes time to master this combo without taking a hit because Hell Blade and Strike Wave take a longer time to cast, even if it's equipped with runes.
Writer's Recommendation:
- My advice is after you finish casting Finish Strike, you can use your mobility skill, Shoulder Charge, to reposition quickly then cast Sword Storm when you gain distance. Lastly, using Hell Blade or Strike Wave is situational since you'll be standing on the ground for a long time.
- After casting Finish Strike and being caught in the wrong position, you can use your mobility skill, Shoulder Charge, to quickly reposition and cast Sword Storm when you gain a decent distance.
- Using Hell Blade or Strike Wave is situational since you'll be standing on the ground for a long time. You can use these skills safely when you know that the boss is focusing on other DPS or being taunted by a tank such as a Gunlancer.
Engravings
Engravings provide powerful stat and damage boosts. This typically dictates your playstyle.
- Mayhem: This is your class engraving and you need to reach the first level for this engraving as all levels provide a flat bonus of 15% Attack and Movement Speed, and 65% Damage Reduction. The only stat change is the increased damage at greater levels (max at 18% outgoing damage).
- Master's Tenacity: Mayhem procs Master's Tenacity effect since you're naturally going to have less than 50% HP.
Add-On Engravings:
- Raid Captain: This is a pretty decent engraving for mayhem Berserkers running high Swiftness build since this provides an 18% damage increase.
- Keen Blunt Weapon: This is recommended for high Crit build since it has a harmful negative. This engraving gives you 50% (lvl3) Crit Damage but you will have a chance to deal -20% damage.
- Curse Doll: This offers a 16% damage boost but -25% healing effectiveness. The healing penalty does not matter since using Tier 2 HP Potion is enough to restore your HP.
- Grudge: This is a common DPS engraving for most classes but requires advanced mechanical skills since you'll be dodging boss mechanics. This engraving offers a 20% damage increase but you have to deal with 20% incoming damage.
- Master of Ambush: This is an alternative to Grudge without any downsides. But the thing is you need to be at the back of the boss to have a 25% damage boost.
Picking Berserker in Lost Ark requires a lot of confidence and mechanical skills since you need to be aware of your HP and your skill mostly has an animation lock that hinders your movement. Yes, they have fast movement speed but it doesn't mean that they're as mobile as Gunslinger or Martial Arts classes. You'll likely clutch any abyssal raid dungeons with your high damage output if you master how to play Berserker and capitalize on the DPS window.
