[OUTDATED] [3.6] [CLEAR][BERSERKER] Smite SSF HC viable

Yes next build will be completely new so I guess I make a new thread. But first I have to play it and see if I can do stuff with it on the ladder in SSF HC or whatever.

Double Strike is a very good choice, now thanks to the slower but harder hitting playstyle and the 25% intrinsical bleed chance its easy to make a good bleed build with it. Bleed got buffed so much with relocating Crimson Dance next to bloodletting. The axe wheel also got buffed.

Double Strike 1h axe + shield bleed is something that I would instantly play. The new axe wheel is so crazy.



https://pastebin.com/MfnN3aiH

Going MoM again here cause 10% inc damage taken (eventhough that will be nullified by the Marauder fortify wheel and Bloodletting). Painreaver for fixing mana sustain, the triple rage would not scale bleed anyway so who cares.

Like it really depends how good the phys aura is number wise if MoM still a thing or not.

If its not so good then just go MoM with a war banner, if its good then yea Blood Magic + the aura and no banner.

I actually wanted to play Heavy Strike to really test this melee patch to its bones but they decided to not add flat phys to heavy strike but a lousy 20% chance of double damage instead so I will play something else. Can't dedicde :/

But yea GGG did really well in giving the marauder/duellist tree some respectable defensive nodes. The new soul of steel is like the best of the skilltree, the foritfy wheels are crazy, then the reduced damage taken from bloodletting and Brinkmanship. Solidity is SOLID. Diamond skin is also OK. Those changes are great. Still missing spellblock though.

ROFL all those new Auras actually fuck blood magic just reserve 90% of your mana. This is INSANE.

This guide is awesome man, thanks for sharing it. I mostly play on PC (have been since beta), but I play a bit on console for a season here and there, or just to mess around in standard. I finished doing everything I wanted to do in the flashback event on PC, so I decided to try my luck with console. It was literally the last weekend of the event, so I challenged myself to playing SSF for a bit as I've never played SSF. I went Berserker as the #1 guy was level 85 (I figured that was an easy enough goal to reach in less then 2 days of play). In just over a day I hit 83 (this includes farming a Tabula in BA until level 74, chaos recipe to spam on gear. Basic essence crafting and such). Gear is god awful, but I leveled with sunder until I found a 5L, then I went smite. I probably should have stayed sunder until I got the Tabby, but I think it was still good practice for the playstyle. After I had my 6L setup I pretty much walked to the end of the game into maps. Played enough to hit level 83 before I had to go do real life things. I kept an eye on the leaderboard, at the end of the event I was safely in the top four.



I've been playing this game a long time. Raced a bun ch too during race seasons. But this is the first time I've ever taken home these (even if its on console)

Thank you and very good man!

There is barely anything more fun and thrilling in this game than the ladder, even more if you end up being on of the top positions. Good job.

Thanks dude, I'm pretty happy about it. Looking forward to seeing what the new Berserker hotness will be!

I have no idea how much they gonna buff the mob hp but warbanner adrenaline and berserk together should be enough to shred every though boy mob and non phased boss in 2 seconds. Even more as pure phys.

With the pure phys Sunder I played with the char "Thelastflashbackhyena" I shredded all white and yellow map bosses with adrenaline in literally 1 sec with warbanner adrenaline and Sunder isnt even a bosskiller. I can barely imagine how this stuff is going to be with 30% more damage and 29% more attack speed from the Berserk gem ... ABSURD. Damage with Attacks also scales bleed thats good.

Maybe we really dont even need all the new auras except a warbanner to deal with the tough shits.

The Sand aura is hugely defensive though. Lets say we combine blood and sand and flesh and stone. That means 35% mana reserved. We choose Sand, enemies are either blinded or we take 11% less damage from them.

The big question of our time might be how to get every single fucking life node on the tree without missing out the foritfy stuff etc.



314% increased life, fortify buff, soul of steel, brinkmanship, a little damage, attack speed and block :DDDD Its also nice that they finally buffed the shield node at the ranger start to give attack speed.

Can you guys get more than that? I challenge you. Cuddling_with_Hyenas would have exactly 10k life with skilltree if we forget about the mini MoM etc.

https://pastebin.com/XmaXLAQF (dont mind the dps etc cause the all the inc melee phys damage doesnt do anything for a flat stacking build like that one, its just for life stacking test etc)

I would really like to design a new build right now and show ya what I gonna play but PoB doesnt have the new gems yet :< But actually I will change my mind a 100 times anyway so ... no idea lol.

One thing that I am pretty sure that it will be completely bonkers is Berserker pure phys EQ 1h + shield with a very little bleed investment (just the bloodletting wheel), preferably the crab mace, cannileus malleus or whatever its name is.

With pride, blood and sand, flesh and stone auras. Picking Sand all the time there for absurd AoE and the "everything is either blinded or dealing 11% less damage". If you somehow manage to also get a Warbanner into this without having mana discomfort then GG.

That stuff would clear everything without damage investment and enables us to go a 290% increased life tree like the one above. Thats my current plan for a proper league starter and 100 pusher.

After looking at the Zerker and passive tree changes and looking for a build I ran into your Smite Zerker to 100 somehow.

I really like how the build looked in 3.6 and it didn't seem like you had too many crazy build defining items that makes me think it will be okay as a league start?

If you had to put a rough % you think it was a buff to the build over all what would you give it? 30% stronger than in 3.6 perhaps?


Smite converts damage to lightning, do you think this makes it mandatory to scale the lightning damage, or is it okay to just continue getting Phys and ignoring the lightning or would that just be a bit of a handicap.

Also would love to know reason for Energy Leech, sure you get the %more damage while leeching but whats it doing for you defensively? You never seemed to have Energy Shield in the video as it was nearly always at 0, is it just slowly mitaging damage from Blood Rage or something.


Over-all do you think it's in a good spot and you just "dont wanna do it again this league" or do you think it's going to be massively out-shined by other melee abilities for Zerker.

Sorry for the questions, hope I can get an answer for each individually before league start!

"

Mev wrote:

After looking at the Zerker and passive tree changes and looking for a build I ran into your Smite Zerker to 100 somehow.

I really like how the build looked in 3.6 and it didn't seem like you had too many crazy build defining items that makes me think it will be okay as a league start?

If you had to put a rough % you think it was a buff to the build over all what would you give it? 30% stronger than in 3.6 perhaps?


Smite converts damage to lightning, do you think this makes it mandatory to scale the lightning damage, or is it okay to just continue getting Phys and ignoring the lightning or would that just be a bit of a handicap.

Also would love to know reason for Energy Leech, sure you get the %more damage while leeching but whats it doing for you defensively? You never seemed to have Energy Shield in the video as it was nearly always at 0, is it just slowly mitaging damage from Blood Rage or something.


Over-all do you think it's in a good spot and you just "dont wanna do it again this league" or do you think it's going to be massively out-shined by other melee abilities for Zerker.

Sorry for the questions, hope I can get an answer for each individually before league start!

The builds was assembled together from whatever I found, it was pretty cheap indeed.

It wont work that well in 3.7 because everything that made it strong was nerfed and all the opposite concepts were buffed. Abyss jewels and MoM were its principles, both those of these things wont be optimal in 3.7 anymoe.

MoM wont be that good because the new auras like blood and sand and pride are too good.

And abyss jewels will lose like 30% of their damage. Smite did not get any significant buff because it is a failry new skill and has actually OK flat damage and utility already.

Energy leech support gem is just a blue skill gem that gives 40% more damage for this build, I did not care about energy shield or energy leech at all.

Altogether, this build was nerfed and the new potential phys damage builds are much stronger than it is so I would not recommend playing it.

I will play pure phys earthquake 1h + shield lifestacking berserker but there is so much new stuff that migh be good might be bad and also so many skills that make the skill bar explode that I really cant just write another guide that easily.

You can scale as much phys as you want with smite but in mind that 50% of it will always converted to lightning damage and map bosses and all kind of stuff has elemental resistances so you gonna need lightning/ele penetration. And penetration needs investment and you will not want to invest in skill points in something that is only related to half of your damage. Either its related to all of your damage or its inefficient. So yea at this point you might want to use the physical damage to lightning damage support gem buts its bullshit because that 50% conversion of the lets say 250 flat phys of weapon and gear is only 125*1.3 = 162.5 flat lightning damage while an added lightning damage support gives a whooping 234 flat lightning damage.

The damage conversion gems are balanced around using 2h weapons I think, for 1h weapons its better to just ignore their phys damage and use added ele damage gems and abyss jewels instead of converting it.

And yea I dont want to play this build again, played it once to lvl 99.6 and died and then to a 100. I mean I really like this build cause it gave me the best results on the ladder I ever had but enough is enough.

except yea this shield wheel is a buff for it lol

Alright thanks for expanding on those questions. Greatly appreciated!