@ Brewsky Despite the title, isn't the first post in this thread just another "frenzy is actually just fine as is" post?
So create another thread then if you really can’t seem to let it go? I’m pretty sure I addressed it as encouraging players to try the class out before the Armchair theorists came out to talk about formulae all day. If a player wants to play a Berserker, maybe give them tips in this thread on how to maximize their abilities instead?
I think it's great that you like the Berserker subclass but many of us do not. I've played both a totem barbarian and a berserker (for just a few levels) and my opinion is the totem is far and away preferable. Why take GWM? Simple...because the bonus action attack does not have a horrible penalty to it and often comes into play during every combat. Mindless rage isn't a bad feature but Intimidating presence is based on charisma? The traditional dumpstat for a barbarian character? And the exhaustion aspect of frenzy is just miserable design. It regulates the berserker to a one trick pony. Doomed to shine oh so very briefly.
While playing your barbarian have you never wanted to use stealth or survival after a frenzy? What about making a perception check? For myself, I have and making all those checks with disadvantage sucks. It drains whatever satisfaction derived from using frenzy completely away. At least for me it did. Essentially a berserker becomes almost incapable of participating in the the game after a frenzy. Want to intimidate a guard? Persuade a merchant? Track the goblins to their hideout? All done with disadvantage. Meanwhile everyone else is playing the game.
Equating frenzy to a paladin smite is actually a good comparison. A paladin will most likely get several more smites than the barbarian will get extra attacks using frenzy but even IF they even out the paladin will not suffer with disadvantage to all his ability checks for the rest of the game day.
Sure some folks seem to like berserker. Not me. I'll take totem spirit or ancestral guardian over it any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I'll scoop up GWM and sentinel plus 4 levels of battlemaster fighter and at 9th level I'll take three attacks most rounds plus a few riposte or free reaction attacks with sentinel. After combat I'll let a berserker sit in a daze while I track whatever monster to it's lair, sneak past the guards, take its treasure, come back and watch over the berserker while he long rests since his perception will be crap.
All bad advice for a Berserker player unfortunately.
A Berserker doesn’t fully come online until higher levels. So the comparison of Barbarians at lower levels is irrelevant.
At level 4, take Sentinel to utilize your reactions and improve your attacks to 3 per round, and 4 per round after you get Extra Attack. Beyond that, feats at later levels will be mostly ASIs for Str, Con, and Cha. I suggest boosting Charisma a bit at least, because Intimidating Presence can essentially nullify an opponent entirely while your team dispatches the goons. Nullifying a creature’s movement indefinitely and without a negating save is incredibly powerful. This combines especially well with Retalition later.
Better yet, wield a shield instead of a two handed weapon. This way, when you don’t reckless you’ll be a better tank than most other Barbs when you need to - push the extra damage when you need it. Your main weapon should be a 10ft reach weapon - this means your Intimidating Presence can keep them at 10ft so they can’t move.
As before, save your Frenzy for the BBEG, you won’t need to make many checks past that point. Besides, you’re likely rolling advantage on the checks that matter for a Barbarian (Athletics during rage), so it only reduces you to a normal roll.
I'm not sure that middle advice is all that helpful. The frightened condition stops the target from moving towards, but not away. They can always withdraw. And if you're fighting with a shield and one-handed reach weapon, then you're hitting with a whip. As much as I'd love to, we can't just drop shields as free actions. They're worn, not held. I could be wrong, but I don't think there's no way to discard a shield and whip (or another one-handed weapon) to draw a...glaive and attack in the same round.
Im more pointing to the +10 damage that the feat allows. A non-berserker Barbarian with GWM and reckless attack can do comparable damage to a frenzied berserker, but without being limited in uses per day (aside from rage). A berserker could also benefit from GWM and up their damage even more during their frenzy.
This is why the point doesn't make any sense; a Berserker gets all the same benefits from GWM, but can also benefit from them even more, so it doesn't make another sub-class comparable at all.
Yeah, you could rearrange your whole build for roleplay and to get greater utility out of the one ability you get that uses charisma all the way at level 10. But if we are going to go to that much trouble, its probably going to be a forgotten ability for most berserkers. Its just odd and less useful than it should be. Especially when Barbarians already have Strength, Con, and Dex begging for their points from their main class.
Also, I thought you told me not to theory craft cherry picked scenarios where something is useful/not useful... exactly like waiting until an ally uses bane to make Intimidating Presence not be a waste of an action?
I'm not "theory crafting", I'm saying consider how the ability works within a party. What you do is not the same thing in the slightest; you take one sub-class ability out of context, compare it to another sub-class ability out of context (usually from another class entirely), just so you can claim the first one is bad as a result.
And getting good enough Charisma to make Intimidating Presence effective does not require rebuilding the character; even a +2 gives a reasonable DC for something you can use for free whenever you want (no spell slots required) and then repeat forever if it lands. As for STR/CON, the pressure to maximise these isn't actually as high as you think for a Barbarian, as I pointed out, since Rage overcomes any losses for keeping them relatively low, meanwhile a Barbarian doesn't really need Dexterity unless they want to use Unarmored Defence.
Yeah, the player loses the choice to use it more and make their character a debilitated mess... but you've told me several times that isn't how you're supposed to play Berserker.
Thanks for reminding us you don't/can't read what anyone says. I have never said anything like this; piling on the exhaustion to frenzy multiple times is absolutely how you should use a Berserker when you need to. Just because you usually only want to use it once per adventuring day doesn't mean you shouldn't use it more on a really tough adventuring day.
Seriously, have you ever actually played as a Berserker (or any of the classes you criticise)? Because you seem to like "theory crafting" ways to belittle the sub-class, yet you don't seem to want to put even a fraction of that effort into considering how it actually can or should be used.
The Paladin only has to hit once to get off a smite, and never self-inflicts a debuff to do so.
In your comparison the Berserker with three attacks per turn and probably advantage didn't get a single hit in up to 9 rounds of combat; you don't get to apply different rules to the Paladin then pretend that you're comparing them fairly.
If the Berserker doesn't hit, then the Paladin definitely doesn't, in which case smite is just as worthless in that comparison; except that in reality the Berserker's abilities make it incredibly unlikely that they will miss, even in situations where the paladin does.
Except that it's not, because comparing single abilities in isolation is never useful in comparing classes; action surge is a Fighter ability, not a Barbarian ability, it's balanced for a class that is more damage oriented than the Barbarian is, because it doesn't get damage resistance or the other benefits of being a Barbarian. This is the same reason that the comparison to Divine Smite isn't useful on its own either.
Seriously, if you're going to compare things it has to be all or nothing, otherwise you're not comparing them at all. And you're doing what you've done on every other thread which is constantly move the goal posts to suit your non-arguments.
The Berserker has the highest short-term damage output of any Barbarian sub-class, that's the entire point of its Frenzied Rage. It doesn't matter if an entirely different class can do more, or another sub-class can do less extra damage over a longer time, because it's not competing with what the Berserker does which is be a Barbarian except even angrier (in short bursts).
You've already bounced back and forth between that and "but players need to have the choice of slow suicide by exhaustion!" Is one or two uses a day enough and what is designed to happen, or isn't it?
No I haven't; Berserkers might usually only want to use it once or twice most adventuring days, but they can use it more if they need to. I have said literally this multiple times across multiple threads, but you never seem to read what anyone actually says; look, we get it, you don't like that a sub-class you've probably never used, and never will, uses a unique mechanic to balance one of its features, but you could at least try to consider it properly rather than just whining about it on every thread of every forum that even vaguely mentions it.
I really don't want to get drawn into this yet again; Berserkers are fine as-is, Frenzied Rage is fine as-is, and this thread is supposed to be about advice for someone who wants to play one, not you hating on the sub-class for the billionth time today.
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I think it's great that you like the Berserker subclass but many of us do not. I've played both a totem barbarian and a berserker (for just a few levels) and my opinion is the totem is far and away preferable. Why take GWM? Simple...because the bonus action attack does not have a horrible penalty to it and often comes into play during every combat. Mindless rage isn't a bad feature but Intimidating presence is based on charisma? The traditional dumpstat for a barbarian character? And the exhaustion aspect of frenzy is just miserable design. It regulates the berserker to a one trick pony. Doomed to shine oh so very briefly.
While playing your barbarian have you never wanted to use stealth or survival after a frenzy? What about making a perception check? For myself, I have and making all those checks with disadvantage sucks. It drains whatever satisfaction derived from using frenzy completely away. At least for me it did. Essentially a berserker becomes almost incapable of participating in the the game after a frenzy. Want to intimidate a guard? Persuade a merchant? Track the goblins to their hideout? All done with disadvantage. Meanwhile everyone else is playing the game.
Equating frenzy to a paladin smite is actually a good comparison. A paladin will most likely get several more smites than the barbarian will get extra attacks using frenzy but even IF they even out the paladin will not suffer with disadvantage to all his ability checks for the rest of the game day.
Sure some folks seem to like berserker. Not me. I'll take totem spirit or ancestral guardian over it any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I'll scoop up GWM and sentinel plus 4 levels of battlemaster fighter and at 9th level I'll take three attacks most rounds plus a few riposte or free reaction attacks with sentinel. After combat I'll let a berserker sit in a daze while I track whatever monster to it's lair, sneak past the guards, take its treasure, come back and watch over the berserker while he long rests since his perception will be crap.
All bad advice for a Berserker player unfortunately.
A Berserker doesn’t fully come online until higher levels. So the comparison of Barbarians at lower levels is irrelevant.
At level 4, take Sentinel to utilize your reactions and improve your attacks to 3 per round, and 4 per round after you get Extra Attack. Beyond that, feats at later levels will be mostly ASIs for Str, Con, and Cha. I suggest boosting Charisma a bit at least, because Intimidating Presence can essentially nullify an opponent entirely while your team dispatches the goons. Nullifying a creature’s movement indefinitely and without a negating save is incredibly powerful. This combines especially well with Retalition later.
Better yet, wield a shield instead of a two handed weapon. This way, when you don’t reckless you’ll be a better tank than most other Barbs when you need to - push the extra damage when you need it. Your main weapon should be a 10ft reach weapon - this means your Intimidating Presence can keep them at 10ft so they can’t move.
As before, save your Frenzy for the BBEG, you won’t need to make many checks past that point. Besides, you’re likely rolling advantage on the checks that matter for a Barbarian (Athletics during rage), so it only reduces you to a normal roll.
I suppose you could consider my post as advice to not choose berserker.
If you want real advice I would say...play a berserker if one, or more, of the below applies:
You are playing a one shot.
You are looking for the ability to do impressive bursts of damage and don't care about the rest.
Your DM tends to only throw one or two encounters at you a day.
Your DM focuses mainly on combat and rarely has social or exploration encounters as part of the game.
There is another PC in the party willing and able to cast Greater Restoration on you whenever you use frenzy.
You like the flavor of it.
And...you have fully reviewed the exhaustion table and understand that those penalties apply even if you are in a frenzy. You are not going to be doing much past 2 levels of exhaustion which will take you two long rests to recover from.
In all other cases I would steer away from the berserker. For me, using frenzy only when you get to the BBEG is unsatisfactory. Essentially, this means that one of your class features is limited to less than once a day. The only other class feature I know of that is that limited is the cleric's divine intervention which allows the cleric to directly call upon his deity. Frenzy is nowhere near that powerful. Heck, even Wish is once a day when you get it.
If you go through the check list and, despite my grim warnings, decide to play a berserker anyway then some more advice...
Brewsky does make one good point. The frenzy option could mean you could make a 'sword and board' barbarian but also have a nuclear option for more damage. So tanking it up may not be such a bad idea. Skip the idea of unarmored combat and leave your dexterity at 14 so you can try to get your charisma up. Personally, I like 4 levels of fighter with my barbarian builds. Take champion or battle master and best of luck.
One thing that I would like to point out that seems to be misunderstood is that the level of exhaustion is accumulated after the frenzied rage. This means that you can do three frenzy rages in a day before you are into the Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws. Granted that means that you would only have one the following day before it happened that day, barring Greater Restoration or some other manner (likely currently homebrewed).
Another way to look at it is that you could do two frenzy rages one day, rest to recover, two the next day, rest to recover, and still have a frenzy left on the third day before being at 3 levels of exhaustion. The 4th level of exhaustion isn't as punishing for a non tanking barbarian, particularly if the party is facing enemies dealing the basic damage and most of the effects are countered by class features up to that point. It does mean that you aren't as effective as you could be, but it also means that you aren't affected by certain conditions like Poisoned, effectively granting you immunity thanks to the advantage rules if you have 3 levels of exhaustion.
By no means am I advocating for racking up those levels of exhaustion and I'm not saying that the subclass is for everyone or for every character. I would certainly advocate playing another barbarian as a first go so that you have a non theoretical idea of what the class is capable of and how the subclass will be affected by those abilities. If you only have the basic rules, don't spend a lot of time developing the character before you start playing so that you don't become attached to it too much, in case you don't like the mechanics or in case you die early (decent advice for any first or second character regardless of class).
Berserker is fine as is, but it won't appeal to everyone, as is evidenced by the many threads of subclass hate. I wasn't particularly interested in playing one when I started playing my first barbarian, but having a better idea of what a barbarian can do and understanding better when frenzy should be used, I would play one now if it fit the character.
Do understand that you don't need to max out Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution at the expense of all else because of Unarmored Defense. Unless you are rolling stats, the highest that I would recommend for dexterity would be a 14 (max for medium armor bonus, which you can use as a barbarian). You'll want a high Strength and a high Constitution (for HP, even if you use medium armor or until unarmored defense is better than it) putting your 12 into wisdom or Charisma will give you a decent ability with those stats, especially if you choose proficiency in the abilities that go with them. It's not as easy as being able to dump dexterity like a Paladin or Str Fighter can do, but it's manageable. Further, having a Paladin in your Party can help with lower mental saves and that would be a good time to break out a berserker.
Potion of Vitality exists. There’s more than one way to remove levels of exhaustion.
Potion of Vitality. Well, there you go. And that's any exhaustion.... dang. It's not a cure all for the problems people have with Berserker due to the rarity, but still.
So create another thread then if you really can’t seem to let it go? I’m pretty sure I addressed it as encouraging players to try the class out before the Armchair theorists came out to talk about formulae all day. If a player wants to play a Berserker, maybe give them tips in this thread on how to maximize their abilities instead?
I'm not sure that middle advice is all that helpful. The frightened condition stops the target from moving towards, but not away. They can always withdraw. And if you're fighting with a shield and one-handed reach weapon, then you're hitting with a whip. As much as I'd love to, we can't just drop shields as free actions. They're worn, not held. I could be wrong, but I don't think there's no way to discard a shield and whip (or another one-handed weapon) to draw a...glaive and attack in the same round.
This is why the point doesn't make any sense; a Berserker gets all the same benefits from GWM, but can also benefit from them even more, so it doesn't make another sub-class comparable at all.
I'm not "theory crafting", I'm saying consider how the ability works within a party. What you do is not the same thing in the slightest; you take one sub-class ability out of context, compare it to another sub-class ability out of context (usually from another class entirely), just so you can claim the first one is bad as a result.
And getting good enough Charisma to make Intimidating Presence effective does not require rebuilding the character; even a +2 gives a reasonable DC for something you can use for free whenever you want (no spell slots required) and then repeat forever if it lands. As for STR/CON, the pressure to maximise these isn't actually as high as you think for a Barbarian, as I pointed out, since Rage overcomes any losses for keeping them relatively low, meanwhile a Barbarian doesn't really need Dexterity unless they want to use Unarmored Defence.
Thanks for reminding us you don't/can't read what anyone says. I have never said anything like this; piling on the exhaustion to frenzy multiple times is absolutely how you should use a Berserker when you need to. Just because you usually only want to use it once per adventuring day doesn't mean you shouldn't use it more on a really tough adventuring day.
Seriously, have you ever actually played as a Berserker (or any of the classes you criticise)? Because you seem to like "theory crafting" ways to belittle the sub-class, yet you don't seem to want to put even a fraction of that effort into considering how it actually can or should be used.
In your comparison the Berserker with three attacks per turn and probably advantage didn't get a single hit in up to 9 rounds of combat; you don't get to apply different rules to the Paladin then pretend that you're comparing them fairly.
If the Berserker doesn't hit, then the Paladin definitely doesn't, in which case smite is just as worthless in that comparison; except that in reality the Berserker's abilities make it incredibly unlikely that they will miss, even in situations where the paladin does.
Except that it's not, because comparing single abilities in isolation is never useful in comparing classes; action surge is a Fighter ability, not a Barbarian ability, it's balanced for a class that is more damage oriented than the Barbarian is, because it doesn't get damage resistance or the other benefits of being a Barbarian. This is the same reason that the comparison to Divine Smite isn't useful on its own either.
Seriously, if you're going to compare things it has to be all or nothing, otherwise you're not comparing them at all. And you're doing what you've done on every other thread which is constantly move the goal posts to suit your non-arguments.
The Berserker has the highest short-term damage output of any Barbarian sub-class, that's the entire point of its Frenzied Rage. It doesn't matter if an entirely different class can do more, or another sub-class can do less extra damage over a longer time, because it's not competing with what the Berserker does which is be a Barbarian except even angrier (in short bursts).
No I haven't; Berserkers might usually only want to use it once or twice most adventuring days, but they can use it more if they need to. I have said literally this multiple times across multiple threads, but you never seem to read what anyone actually says; look, we get it, you don't like that a sub-class you've probably never used, and never will, uses a unique mechanic to balance one of its features, but you could at least try to consider it properly rather than just whining about it on every thread of every forum that even vaguely mentions it.
I really don't want to get drawn into this yet again; Berserkers are fine as-is, Frenzied Rage is fine as-is, and this thread is supposed to be about advice for someone who wants to play one, not you hating on the sub-class for the billionth time today.
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I suppose you could consider my post as advice to not choose berserker.
If you want real advice I would say...play a berserker if one, or more, of the below applies:
And...you have fully reviewed the exhaustion table and understand that those penalties apply even if you are in a frenzy. You are not going to be doing much past 2 levels of exhaustion which will take you two long rests to recover from.
In all other cases I would steer away from the berserker. For me, using frenzy only when you get to the BBEG is unsatisfactory. Essentially, this means that one of your class features is limited to less than once a day. The only other class feature I know of that is that limited is the cleric's divine intervention which allows the cleric to directly call upon his deity. Frenzy is nowhere near that powerful. Heck, even Wish is once a day when you get it.
If you go through the check list and, despite my grim warnings, decide to play a berserker anyway then some more advice...
Brewsky does make one good point. The frenzy option could mean you could make a 'sword and board' barbarian but also have a nuclear option for more damage. So tanking it up may not be such a bad idea. Skip the idea of unarmored combat and leave your dexterity at 14 so you can try to get your charisma up. Personally, I like 4 levels of fighter with my barbarian builds. Take champion or battle master and best of luck.
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One thing that I would like to point out that seems to be misunderstood is that the level of exhaustion is accumulated after the frenzied rage. This means that you can do three frenzy rages in a day before you are into the Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws. Granted that means that you would only have one the following day before it happened that day, barring Greater Restoration or some other manner (likely currently homebrewed).
Another way to look at it is that you could do two frenzy rages one day, rest to recover, two the next day, rest to recover, and still have a frenzy left on the third day before being at 3 levels of exhaustion. The 4th level of exhaustion isn't as punishing for a non tanking barbarian, particularly if the party is facing enemies dealing the basic damage and most of the effects are countered by class features up to that point. It does mean that you aren't as effective as you could be, but it also means that you aren't affected by certain conditions like Poisoned, effectively granting you immunity thanks to the advantage rules if you have 3 levels of exhaustion.
By no means am I advocating for racking up those levels of exhaustion and I'm not saying that the subclass is for everyone or for every character. I would certainly advocate playing another barbarian as a first go so that you have a non theoretical idea of what the class is capable of and how the subclass will be affected by those abilities. If you only have the basic rules, don't spend a lot of time developing the character before you start playing so that you don't become attached to it too much, in case you don't like the mechanics or in case you die early (decent advice for any first or second character regardless of class).
Berserker is fine as is, but it won't appeal to everyone, as is evidenced by the many threads of subclass hate. I wasn't particularly interested in playing one when I started playing my first barbarian, but having a better idea of what a barbarian can do and understanding better when frenzy should be used, I would play one now if it fit the character.
Do understand that you don't need to max out Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution at the expense of all else because of Unarmored Defense. Unless you are rolling stats, the highest that I would recommend for dexterity would be a 14 (max for medium armor bonus, which you can use as a barbarian). You'll want a high Strength and a high Constitution (for HP, even if you use medium armor or until unarmored defense is better than it) putting your 12 into wisdom or Charisma will give you a decent ability with those stats, especially if you choose proficiency in the abilities that go with them. It's not as easy as being able to dump dexterity like a Paladin or Str Fighter can do, but it's manageable. Further, having a Paladin in your Party can help with lower mental saves and that would be a good time to break out a berserker.
Potion of Vitality exists. There’s more than one way to remove levels of exhaustion.
Potion of Vitality. Well, there you go. And that's any exhaustion.... dang. It's not a cure all for the problems people have with Berserker due to the rarity, but still.