Berserker - Burstzerker
Note: Please note that builds will default to plain icons, these may not be as accurate. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Contents
Overview
The Burstzerker provides massive AoE spike damage from and potent downstate control through various high damage cleave skills.
Skill Bar
First Weapon Set
Skill Variants
Heal
- will lower your burst damage in exchange for an incredible sustain option. Use this if party support is an issue or enemies have high pressure.
Utility
- can be replaced by the following if sustain is an issue.
- a short cooldown stunbreak
- powerful anti condition pressure and adrenaline gain
- for quick might stacking and fury access. Fits well with Tactics variant
Elite
- If spending a lot of time at range and you want to ensure you have adrenaline on engage, consider running this, especially for non builds.
Template Code
Specializations
Variants
- Take Tactics for a higher potential damage spike and powerful self sustain with area might generation. Tactics can be used in place of either trait line depending on play style preference.
- Take Defense only if you absolutely must to survive, as it is a major DPS loss.
Equipment
Consumables
- feast option with additional damage reduction.
Variants
Stats
- Marauder's provides a better spread of stats and helps keep you alive with Strength equipped, but
Berserker's may be used in its place for higher damage at a higher risk.
Sigils
-
- Sigils to abuse of .
Rune
- equally viable option.
Food
- Defensive Option
Utility
- cheaper option.
Usage
General
- Focus on keeping a high uptime and landing as many as possible. While in Berserker form, you can swap to Axe, land your high priority skills and swap back in time to Arc Divider again with minimal loss, but do not linger any longer than the 5s cooldown or you are wasting valuable Arc Divider time.
- Axe is used generally to gain large amounts of adrenaline and provide cleave outside of Arc Divider, as can be unreliable.
- provides 5 adrenaline, so between Berserk you should swap weapons once to Axe/Axe, and back again to Greatsword to regain full adrenaline. is also helpful for adrenaline management.
- Try to be on top of enemies when going into , to deal damage and get 3 stacks of , since you lose a lot of DPS potential if building it up through Primal Bursts.
- Due to , upon entering mode, you briefly get
Quickness and
Superspeed. Use that frame to land (reset with ) and other GS A/A skills.
- Your dodges deal damage and give
Might thanks to . Very useful when pushing through or trading sides with the enemy group.
- You naturally output a lot of
Might due to , which also means it often gets corrupted.
Weakness and
Blind are the worst conditions for this build as they significantly soft your DPS. Thefore, try to push and stay within range of support, for cleansing and boons.
- Also, this build overall lacks condition clear and passive survival tools, so another reason to stick near your supports.
- removes
Immobilize when using a movement skill - list of movement skills in the build:
- , and .
- should be used as stunbreak and not preemptively unless absolutely necessary. Besides the pulsing
Stability, it also denies a lot of direct damage, because you are immune to critical hits.
- to be immune to any direct damage, still susceptible to CC's and condi pressure thought. Either cast it preemptively, to mitigate expected damage or, reactively, like a stunbreak.
- Know well what Stance to use given the situation. makes you weaker against direct damage, so using your Stances while in mode, for example, may be helpful to compensate your "squishness" and to ensure your damage lands.
- Once out of cooldowns you become a very easy target and will rely on teammates support, positioning and awareness to survive.
- If you go down 50% and realizes effect is active, try to not to use together, since you won't benefit from the immunity to critical hit, because you won't be taking any direct damage.
- Both and are tied to the DPS burst. Signet to instantly receive 30 adrenaline and damage boost for , and Heal skill to reset your Primal Burst and heal based on your damage.
- Best use of is when you can hit multiple targets with hard hitting skills like and , allowing you to overextend on top of enemy a bit longer.
- has several uses. Main purpose is for the huge single target damage, notably if you have
Stability to spare. Yet, can also be valuable for the instant adrenaline it grants; another stunbreak option, althought, depending on where facing, you may find yourself out of position; and to ignore movement-impairing conditions, by either removing
Immobilize or covering some distance you wouldn't by simply walking.
- Keep in mind you'll get stunned for 1s if the skill connects.
Greatsword
- as noted above, will be spammed off cooldown for massive spike damage. Be mindful it increases the radius every spin, so there's no need to sit on top of enemies all the time. Also, don't be afraid to interrupt the channel if you need to dodge, or use another skill.
- won't see much use, because, once out of cooldowns, you should swap weapon sets. Still, it's decent for cleave and to fill downtime.
- is situational. You stand still during channel, which means hitting CC'ed, movement impaired and downed foes is the ideal setup for this ability. However, you could still go for it anytime and still make good use, as long as the animation is canceled once enemies leave the AoE.
- Try to use before for maximum DPS and also to refill adrenaline.
- deals substantial damage and an evade frame. Should NOT be used only for its mobility function.
- Use for filler damage.
- will be used mostly for repositioning or gap closing, fastly covering a large distance. Also usable for good single target damage.
- Don't have any foe targeted if using it for mobility.
Axe/Axe
- deals big single target damage and resets everytime it hits. Also, reaches a significant distance compared to the other Axe skills. Cast it offcooldown, whenever you go into Axe/Axe or have an adrenaline surplus and weapon swap isn't available yet.
- and will be filler skills, Axe auto attacks don't do much damage outside of the 3rd hit and you shouldn't be waiting for its channel, unless cleaving. is mostly situational and will barely see use, other than finalizing low targets.
- provides a very strong sustained damage for its duration. Amazing skill for chasing, since you can move, and for cleaving, as it also disrupt potential handrezzes. Even if you have to be on top of the enemy to target cap, try to not to interrupt, unless necessary, or get interrupted during the channel as it's a large part of your damage outside of Arc.
- Try to use before or as it stacks some
Vulnerability and grants
Fury, which this build doesn't have much access to. Outside of that, use normally for damage.
- Aside from being another big damage skill, grants 3s of
Quickness. Always look for following it up with an or a to benefit from the faster cast time.
Opening Burst
- Start in combat
- Weapon Swap
- Weapon Swap
- From here, if you have received any
Alacrity during this burst, you will be able to add the following step before Berserk ends ⇒ .
- Fill downtime with auto attacks
- In the heat of WvW, with dodge rolls and CC, you may find it impossible to complete this rotation 100% of the time. Your priority is using as many Arc Dividers as possible at close range.
Videos
- YouTube: The Blue Ranger (Opening Rotation Demonstration)
Comments