Lost Ark Berserker Guide (Builds, Engravings, and Tips)

Berserker Class Guide – Lost Ark

Berserkers are an advanced class available to warriors that focuses on dealing large amounts of damage while staying relatively tanky.

They’re one of the most beginner friendly classes in Lost Ark but that doesn’t mean they aren’t able to show skill with end game builds later. Although they don’t have access to party buffs like some other classes, one of the biggest draws is how durable they are as melee damage dealers.

You have decent mobility compared to the other warrior classes and can have some crazy DPS burst windows but you will notice you have some long cooldowns to play around which can feel a little clunky.

In general you’ll have access to good stagger abilities and AoE that can crush whole groups of enemies, plus two distinct playstyles with your class engravings.

If you’re looking to play a high damage melee class that is more durable then the berserker is the class for you. If you’re planning on leveling this class, please, check out our Berserker leveling guide.

Comparisons to other classes

When it comes to your other advanced warrior classes – the Paladin is focused on support play with shields and buffs while gunlancer is more of your traditional tank.

The Gunlancer does have access to damage and support skills but focuses more on disruption while being extremely tanky.

Next to other melee dps classes you’ll notice the Berserker is much more durable with massive burst damage.

Check out our Lost Ark classes tier list if you want to know more about where Berserker stands in the current meta for both PvP and PvE.

PvE

Berserkers can deal excellent burst or sustained damage depending on which build you decide to play.

Like other classes you will build up a Fury meter that will allow you to go into Burst Mode. This raises your movement speed, attack speed and Crit chance which makes you much more powerful. When the mode ends – you’ll have an exhaustion debuff for 30 seconds where you cannot generate Fury, much like the Shadowhunter does.

If you want to play around your Burst Mode, you’ll concentrate on building up that Fury as quickly as possible and having a huge payout when you do with all the bonus stats and damage you gain.

If you want to live life on the edge, you can decide to use your Mayhem engraving and enter and exit Burst Mode whenever you like. The price is you have to play with a maximum health penalty making that much more durable Berserker feel a little less safe.

PvP

In PvP Berserkers are still tanky damage dealers but they have renowned for long cooldowns and mana issues.

You do have good mobility and damage so your playstyle revolves more around catching enemies with that extremely heavy hitting damage.

Most combos you’ll play around follow the same pattern, engage with a dash and a stun, follow with insane damage while they’re caught out

While you are more durable, you have to be more deliberate as if you don’t have the cooldowns or mana to follow up well you’ll land yourself in a lot of trouble.

Core Abilities

Finish Strike

A strong skill where the Berserker slams their greatsword down with its high damage burst from the second hit, damage can be further increased with Enhanced Strike tripod. This skill does very good damage and high Stagger.

Tempest Slash

The Berserker charges about 4m in the designated direction and swings their greatsword, dealing damage to the enemy and launching them into the air. This skill does a decent damage and Stagger.

Hell Blade

The Berserker leaps and inserts their greatsword into the ground holding it up to 1.5 seconds and attacks for 6 times, dealing damage. When the perfect zone succeeds, a finishing attack is added, dealing high damage, and blowing up enemies.
It is one of your highest damage skills with high Stagger.

Strike Wave

The Berserker gathers the energy of the greatsword, then releases sword energy that cuts through the ground. The skill deals damage in 4 successive strikes in a line extending outwards. Some bosses require certain positioning to get all 4 hits in. Other bosses, no matter what you do, can only be hit 3 times.

Sword Storm

The Berserker jumps in the air while rotating in a counterclockwise direction, he slams his sword into the ground, causing a storm of swords to spread, inflicting damage, and knocking foes down.

This skill is used by Mayhem Berserkers only because of their third row Skill Tree, Flame Storm. This causes bonus damage when the Berserker is below 50% health, which is always active. Quick Preparation is taken over Vital Point Strike to fit into the optimum damage rotation.

Red Dust

This is an important skill that can be used as either a self or party synergy buff. Landing this skill marks your target to take additional damage.

This skill makes foes take 30% more damage from Berserker only for 6 seconds and with Vital point tripod gives also Crit buff to the Berserker, so you must cast this skill before you cast your hardest hitting skills.

For more party synergy burst, players use Amplified Damage Tripod. This tripod decreases the buff from 30% to 6% but allows the entire team to benefit from increased damage done and for a higher duration of 16 seconds.

Awakening Abilities

Like all Lost Ark classes, the Berserker has access to two Awakening abilities.

Chain of Vengeance

• Release chains of energy to inflict damage to surrounding foes then pull them in again inflicting damage, A massive explosion then occurs immediately afterwards, knocking foes away and inflicting more damage.
• This skill charges your Fury meter greatly.

Berserk Fury

• Infuse your greatsword with power to create berserk fury and deliver a powerful strike. you need to charge this skill to complete Berserk Fury, and the damage will become more devastating at higher charge levels. Attack range also increases according to the charge level.
• Berserk Fury is the preferred awakening ability for almost all raid builds, Chain of Vengeance is mainly used in PvP and Chaos dungeons.

Advanced Class Engravings

Every Lost Ark class has access to engravings that will focus your playstyle in one particular direction.For Berserkers, you can choose between Berserker’s Technique and Mayhem.

Berserker’s Technique

The first removes the exhaustion debuff after leaving Burst Mode so you can immediately start to gain the Fury you need and get back into it as quickly as possible.

This playstyle feels amazing when you are in Burst Mode because of all the free stats that you get – movespeed, attack speed, crit chance and you’ll also now gain bonus crit damage.

You’ll be picking skills and tripods to fill up your fury bar quicker – but you will feel a little underwhelming while charging it up and out of burst mode.

It’s perfect if you prefer feeling crazy powerful for a short period of time – especially with your Bloody Rush skill you only get access to in burst mode.

You will want to focus on specialization and crit secondary with this build. Specialization increases your fury meter gain, keeps you in burst mode longer and boosts the damage of your awakening skill.

Mayhem

Your other option is your Mayhem engraving which removes the need to build Fury at all.

Mayhem Berserkers can stay in the mode for as long as they like but have two tradeoffs to compensate. They lose the crit buff from burst mode but gain a movespeed and attack boost instead.

They take less damage but they cannot go above 25% of their health total even when healed.

This effectively takes away the burst window you play with as you’re always in Burst mode, you always hit hard now.

This playstyle is obviously more punishing having less total health but you also have other skills that are stronger when at low health.

The build focuses around Crit and Swiftness. You will want Crit because you lose that buff you normally get in Burst mode while Swiftness increases your movespeed, attack speed and lowers your cooldowns.

Build

Mayhem

This build uses Mayhem class engraving as the main engraving. This build is known to be a high risk, low survivability, and high consistent damage build.

The Mayhem class engraving allows berserker to stay in the Burst mode for as long as possible but Berserker’s HP is kept below 25% so you must pay extra attention to the raid mechanics because it is easy to die if you play carelessly.

Here are some of the skill explanations and tripods that you will take (make sure to max your main damage skills first which include Finish Strike, Tempest Slash, Hell Blade, Strike Wave and Sword Storm (level 10) and at least 4 points in every other skill and if you have enough skill points, level them in the following order:

• Finish Strike
  • • 3:3:2 (higher damage) or 1:3:2 (Tenacity)
    • One of your main damage skills, it does high damage and high stagger.
    • You will need to position yourself at the back side of the boss to get the most of it.
• Tempest Slash
  • 3-3-2 (slow cast, higher damage) or 3-3-1 (fast cast, lower damage)
  • One of your main damage skills, it does good damage.
    you will need to position yourself at the back side of the boss to get the most of it.
• Hell Blade
  • 2-3-1
  • One of your highest damage skills, you will need to position yourself at the back side of the boss to get the most of it.
• Strike Wave
  • 1-2-2
  • One of your main damage skills, this skill deals damage in 4 successive strikes in a line extending outwards.
  • It requires certain positioning to get all 4 hits in.
  • It does not require a backside attack.
• Sword Storm
  • 2-2-1 (lower CD) or 3-2-1 (higher crit)
  • One of your main damage skills, you will need to position yourself at the back side of the boss to get the most of it.
• Red Dust
  • 1-1-1
  • Your party synergy skill. Landing this skill marks your target to take additional damage.
• Chain Sword
  • 1-3-0 or 1-3-1 (if you have more skill points)
  • It is used as a self-buff skill to give attack speed and crit.
  • Good counter skill
• Shoulder charge
  • 3-0-0 or 3-1-0 (if you have more skill points)
  • It is used mainly as a mobility skill.

Stat Priority

• Prioritize Crit and make Swiftness your secondary stat.
• Optimum ratio is 60% Crit, 40% Swiftness.

Runes

• Galewind runes on Finish Strike, Tempest Slash, Hell Blade, Strike Wave and Sword Storm.
• Bleed rune on Red Dust (Optional).
• Quick recharge rune on Red Dust (Optional).
• Rage rune on Chain Sword (Optional).
• Everything else is preference.

Engraving

• Mayhem lvl 3 is essential to the build as it makes you always in burst mode and gives increased damage and movement speed.
• Master’s Tenacity lvl 3 is ideal for this build because you are always under 25% HP, so the damage increase is 100% uptime.
• Grudge lvl 3 is good engraving as it gives increased damage against bosses.
• Keen Blunt Weapon lvl 3 is a good choice for Mayhem Berserker due to how much crit rate they have from basic states, self-buffs and if they landed their skills from the back.
• Cursed Doll lvl 3 and Raid caption 3 lvl can make good extra engravings once you can slot either one of them in (depend on preference).

Gems

• Damage and Cooldown gems on:
  • Finish Strike
  • Tempest Slash
  • Hell Blade
  • Strike Wave
  • Sword Storm
• Cooldown gem on Red Dust.

Berserker’s Technique

This build used Berserker’s Technique class engraving as the main engraving. This build consists of building up your Fury meter by doing damage with your skills and once the gauge is full , use it to enter burst mode and do good burst damage.

Here are some of the skill explanations and tripods that you will take (Make sure to max your main damage skills first which include Finish Strike, Tempest Slash, Hell Blade and Strike Wave (level 10) and at least 4 points in every other skill and if you have enough skill points, level them in the following order:

• Finish Strike
  • 3-3-2 (higher damage) or 1-3-2 (Tenacity)
  • One of your main damage skills, it does high damage and high stagger.
  • You will need to position yourself at the back side of the boss to get the most of it.
• Tempest Slash
  • 1-3-1
  • One of your meter charging skills, it does good damage.
  • You will need to position yourself at the back side of the boss to get the most of it.
• Hell Blade
  • 2-1-1
  • One of your highest damage skills, you will need to position yourself at the back side of the boss to get the most of it.
• Strike Wave
  •  1-2-2
  • One of your main damage skills, this skill deals damage in 4 successive strikes in a line extending outwards.
  • It requires certain positioning to get all 4 hits in
  •  It does not require a backside attack.
• Wind Blade
  • 3-3-2
  • One of your meter charging skills, it does average damage.
• Red Dust
  • 1-1-1
  • Your party synergy skill. Landing this skill marks your target to take additional damage.
• Mountain Crush
  • 2-2 or 2-2-2 (if you have more skill points)
  • Your highest meter charging skills, make sure to use this skill off cooldown.
  • Good counter skill.
• Shoulder Charge
  • 3-0-0 or 3-1-0 (if you have more skill points
  •  It is used mainly as a mobility skill.

Stat Priority

• Prioritize Specialization and make Crit your secondary stat.
• Optimum ratio is 70% Specialization, 30% Crit.

Runes

• Galewind runes on Finish Strike, Hell Blade and Strike Wave.
• Wealth runes on Mountain Crush and Wind Blade.
• Bleed rune on Tempest Slash (optional).
• Quick recharge rune on Red Dust (optional).
• Everything else is preference.

Engraving

• Berserker’s Technique lvl 3 is essential to the build because it gives more crit damage in the burst mode.
• Keen Blunt Weapon lvl 3 is a good choice for Berserker’s Technique Berserker due to how much crit rate they have in Burst Mode, self-buffs and if they landed their skills from the back.
• Grudge lvl 3 is good engraving as it gives increased damage against bosses.
• Cursed Doll lvl 3 can also be a good engraving.
• Raid Caption 3 lvl and Master of Ambush lvl 3 can make good extra engravings once you can slot either one of them in (depend on preference).

Gems

• Damage and Cooldown gems on:
  • Bloody Rush
  • Finish Strike
  • Tempest Slash
  • Hell Blade
  • Strike Wave
• Cooldown gem on Red Dust.

Thanks for reading! To learn more about the other classes, check out our collection of Lost Ark class guides.