[3.1] Volatile Berserker (Poet's Pen + Volatile Dead) | 8-9K Life | Incredible DPS | Easy Leveling

The helmet enchant is being nerfed from +3/2 to +1 and will be retroactively changed for all helmet with either +2 or +3 enchant. This is a nerf to the build as we will go from 6 Volatile Dead balls per trigger to 4.

However, it's also a blessing in disguise as we get to drop LMP in our Unearth setup to something else like PCoC, Blind or Culling Strike. This gives us a bit more flexibility on what we run in our 4L Frenzy setup.

Dual Poet's pen is the foundation of the build. We use these to trigger Unearth and Volatile Dead. There's not much else to say except prioritize obtaining these.

For your helmet, go with the one you can get the enchant on. The enchant pretty much doubles our damage output. If you can't get the enchant, then go for either a rare helmet with life/resists or a Starkonja.

Kaom's Heart is our go-to chest. An insane amount of flat life on top of fire damage, what's not to love?

For the gloves Oskarm are good on a budget. You'll want to eventually obtain a pair of Atziri's Acuities. Ever since the enchant nerf we can drop LMP in our Unearth setup and run a Power Charge on Crit Gem which will sustain charges when we have Acuities.

For boots you will just want a rare pair with resists, movement speed and life. Try to get the Uber labyrinth enchantment that gives 10% elemental pen since it's amazing against bosses. You can also try to purchase or craft a pair of rare Shaper boots in order to get the cooldown reduction to increase the amount of triggers you can get off per second.

Rare amulet with Critical strike chance, life, critical strike multiplier and whatever else you might be missing. Unique amulets such as Impresence or Xoph's Heart are good alternatives if you can fit one in.

Opal ring crafted with Essence of Anger will be our best choice. If you're on a budget, Diamond rings will do fine until you can get a pair of Opal rings.

For your belt slot, a rare Abyssal belt will be the best choice on a budget. Try to get Life/Resists/Strength. The optimal belt however would probably be a rare Shaper Leather belt with cooldown reduction affix on it, this will allow us to go over 4 attacks per second without having any dead attacks.

For your jewels, you will want to have 5 rare jewels with Life + Increased damage. The 5th jewel you would ideally want the unique jewel the Watcher's Eye with the affix "Damage Penetrates (10-15%) of Fire Resistance while affected by Anger". This jewel is a significant damage increase.

For your flasks you will want a magic Diamond flask, The Wise Oak(make sure Fire Resistance is your highest res!) and an Atziri's Promise. The rest of the flasks is up to you to decide what you want and need.

Leveling:

1-12 - as marauder pick anything, like fire traps, cleave, flame totem - basicly ANYTHING that deals decent low lvl tooltip dmg since we wont really get any damage nodes early on. At lvl 8 buy LifeGainOnHit and level it up.

12-18 - grab Your Poet's Pens and socket one with VD-Onslaught-AddedLightning, or just raw with no links since its still op. In second wand go for unearth-lmp. This is where You start to faceroll. At lvl 12 use Barrage-LMP for trigerring, and when You hit 16 switch to frenzy-lmp.

18-38 - Here is where You start to faceroll even harder. Go for VD-EleFocus-ConcEff and Unearth-LMP-PowerChargeOnCrit as soon as You hit 18, and You are golden. Dont forget to switch Barrage to Frenzy-LMP-Faster Attacks-LifeGainOnHit (if u have mana issues skip LGOH for now).

38-xxx - Add GMP to Unearth and Frenzy, thats pretty much it. Continue facerolling.


Leveling Uniques and items I suggest using:

Ring Slots: -8 Elreon ring. Coral preffered, but any will do. Second ring: Praxis with -8 Mana, and some decent rolls.
Alternative: Emberwake, Mokou's Embrace, Le Heup of All. Nice DMG and overall boosts, but trust me, You DONT need more dmg.

Amulets: - Karui Ward as a stat booster early on. At 16 You can switch to Atziri's Foible if You have one (only If You dont have praxis for lvl 22). Basicly pick any amulet, even white lapis/jade for stats. Options worth to mention later on: Karui Charge, Ngamahu Tiki. *Also, if You dont have elreon ring You can get elreon amulet (jade/lapis/any-7/-8)


Belts: - Darkness Enthroned. Lvl 1 belt with 2 abyss jewels is worth taking a shot coz this abyss jewels gives quite nice boost early on. If You dont want waste Your time: Perandus Blazon as a stat booster. Early on we really struggle to get that dex and int... Anyway, if You dont have stat issues switch to Bisco's Leash. Definetly. Honorable mention: Headhunter xD


Gloves: - Here we have 2 options early on. Lochtonial Caress and Deodre's Tenure. First one for free charges and attack speed, second for free 50-60% spell dmg (They also reduce our cast speed, but who cares since we dont cast?). I used Doedres till lvl 70. Honorable mention: Maligaro's Virtuosity for some crit early on, but they aint worth using in my opinion.


Boots: - Wanderlust and Dusktoes. I used first one, but Dusktoes gives nice dmg boost during flask effect, and trust me: You will smash this silvers and quicksilvers as hard as u can :D Worth to mention: Goldwyrms, Sundances, Seven-League Step.


Chest: - Briskwrap or just any. I used Briskwrap for some Attack Speed honestly. Any life/res chest will do. No tabula needed (Still You can get Tabula with + to vall gems if You like to smash some vaal spark/haste etc during leveling nad squeeze the 6l out of it).


Helmets: - Goldrim is best in socket. Free 30-40% all res is worth taking a shot. There nothing much I can tell. Worth to mention: Deidbell (stat keeper), Asenath Mark (attack speed and movement speed).


Flasks: Here is hard to find any unique flasks, but try to get 1 life flask and upgrade it base with levels to dont stuck with small life flask on level 50 like I did. Worth to add: 2x Experimenter's Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline (increased movement speed during flask effect and increased duration), 1x Silver Flask of Warding (remove curses) with any preffix like "reduces charges used" or some, and 1x Diamond Flask roled with removes bleeding on use (since we dont really get freezed when we leveling, and we have wanderlusts).

This setup should carry You on till act 10 kitava and level 70~.


Overall leveling tips:

- Keep some gems to level in offhand slots (I used 6x VD).
- Dont forget to watch for Your resistances during leveling. Bismuth flasks or switching 1 or 2 uniques like chests/amu/ring later may be handy.
- Since we dont need any CWDT setup during leveling You can add some LightWarp-FasterCasting-ReducedDuration setup just for skiping those gaps.
- Pick first lab with leech nodes as soon as You can for extra sustain. With them You cna get rid of elreon jewelery/praxis.
- Don't pick up trash. Seriously, only jewels, abyss jewels and uniques plus currency are worth picking up when You level. Maybe some quality gems and flasks for free recipes.
- Buy all required gems using another character before You start and keep them in inventory just ot add during leveling (maybe except CWDT setup). It really cuts off Your leveling time.
- Get all leveling uniques before You start. Whole set EXCEPT POET PENS costs like... 10-12c depends on rolls (I payed like 8c for all I needed). And keep them in stash and just add - like gems - during leveling. Another timesaver, plus You can keep this items for leveling later another char.


Happy Leveling! :)

Can I use [INSERT X] ascendancy instead of Berserker?

Yes. Volatile Dead is strong and versatile enough to work well on almost any Ascendancy class. Though you do obviously want to pick one that synergizes well with Volatile Dead itself. I would recommend:

Berserker, Inquisitor, Assassin, Occultist, Trickster, Champion, Pathfinder & Ascendant.

Can I use Elemental Overload and ignore the crit multi?

Yes. But be warned that your damage will be lower. The reason we go for Critical strikes in this build is because all the nodes we pick are efficient nodes that don't require any real traveling to reach. It's also not more expensive to go for Crit over EO since the gear would pretty much be the same.

Can you upload a video of the build?

Unfortunately because of recent PC issues, I'm not really in a good position to record footage of the build. However, Bitbite11 was nice enough to record two videos of him playing the build. These videos make use of the legacy enchant which made Volatile Dead destroy 3 additional corpses vs the current one which is only 1 additional corpse, but the gameplay is still very much the same.

Why Berserker over [INSERT X] Ascendancy?

Berserker is amazing on a budget. We gain 1% Life & Mana leech on our Ascendancy tree which frees us up from having to use the Watcher's Eye jewel with the Anger leech affix(Which are currently at 10+ Exalted orbs as of writing this) or Warlord's Mark. On top of that we also have the 40% more damage which is a huge boost to our damage. Berserker is a great Ascendancy class that offers us everything we want.