The Complete HCSSF Earthshatter Berserker Guide [PoE 3.17 ArchNemesis]

===== LEVELING TIPS ================================================================================================================================================================================== --- Magic or Rare Rustic Sash + 1 Blacksmith Whetstone + White/Magic Weapon = Weapon with % Phys Damage. This is essentially a mandatory recipe to use whilst leveling melee characters - start looking for whetstones and alterations for the recipe in A1, and use the recipe as early as possible. This makes a MASSIVE difference in your damage + QoL. This recipe also leaves your weapon with an open suffix. Even at league start you have certain crafts unlocked instantly, such as resistances! You can always use the vendor recipe then craft a resistance roll on it afterwards for 1 Transmute. --- Upgrade your weapon bases frequently! Find a list of all the base types and what level they require for AXES here - https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/List_of_two_hand_axes MACES here - https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Two-handed_mace --- Axes VS Maces While Leveling? Axes are inherently the better base type over maces. They have higher base damage, and better nodes on the tree. Normally I would recommend ONLY leveling as axes and wouldn't consider maces, as you don't need the chill until higher content. Most things whilst leveling will die instantly, so the chill will do nothing for you, and the content is trivial on things that don't die quickly. *However* with melee physical support having a less attack speed multiplier now it can feel awkward while leveling. Maces have the distinct advantage of being able to use Shockwave Support (Act 2 level 18 support) If you decide to level with maces, remember that you cannot use Close Combat Support, so that will be the link you'll want to replace for Shockwave Support I had only started playing around with and testing shockwave the day before my death, but my initial impressions were quite good. I have not yet leveled using this with a mace myself, but I definitely think its viable - and might be more fun to do so. --- Sunder VS Helix For Leveling? I typically recommend, and use sunder myself, because it hits multiple times and can be used from range. This combind with Intimidating Cry (Which doubles your damage on exerted attacks) allows you to get multiple instances of damage with intimidating cry early on before investing into the warcry nodes + second wind and using Earthshatter. I tried using Spectral Helix for leveling a test character recently because people kept mentioning it to me. I think the skill does great at the end of Act 1 through Act 2, and starts to fall off through Act 3. Spectral Helix has very high base damage numbers, and if you're using a good weapon, its quite easy to just throw one helix out intermittenly as you run through a zone and it will clear trash and net you easy exp. However - the skill mechanically is very wonky and feels quite terrible in my personal opinion. I will likely still use Sunder myself for leveling, but if you prefer Helix, thats fine too. It's not a large deal, as with my tree you're starting Earthshatter by act 3 anyway. Choose what you prefer! --- How Do I Sustain Mana? Early on while leveling you'll want to start looking for Viridian Jewels, as they can roll Melee Physical Damage Leeched as Mana - this will help sustain your mana pool and let you drop your mana flask. Endgame preferably you'll have mana leech on either rings or your amulet to open up a jewel socket. --- Why do you have Splitting Steel socketed even in the Endgame Setup? As this is an impale build, we can utilize Call of Steel, which is a secondary skill that socketing ANY of the steel skills into your gear gives you. Hit the screen with 1-2 Earthshatters > Call of Steel > Screen Explodes. Very satisfying playstyle in my opinion that is somewhat reminicisent of ignite proliferation or essence drain contagion in that way the all the impales can shotgun the surrounding mobs. This means the build gets stronger (for clearing) the more density there is in your map! --- Rage Vortex? You can play either Earthshatter or Rage Vortex with this tree. ES will have better clear by a longshot, RV will have a much easier time bossing due to it effectively being a damage over time skill. Feel free to play around with both. The links are the same - replace Close Combat Support if using an axe, or Shockwave Support if using a mace with Rage Support. *One important note for Rage Vortex - Berserker warcry builds themselves are incredibly high APM (Action Per Minute) builds! They are a lot more intense to play over other warcry builds (Slayer/Champion) because of having to balance rage around your berserk. You will be constantly minmaxing your berserk uptime and that can make the playstyle much more hectic and hard to swallow for newer players to the archetype. It is worth noting that Rage Vortex can exacerbate this problem, as it ALSO uses rage. Balancing rage around berserk + rage vortex can be incredibly hectic and hard to keep track of, especially in hardcore! --- How Do I Keep Up Berserk? Berserker warcry builds themselves are incredibly high APM (Action Per Minute) builds! They are a lot more intense to play over other warcry builds (Slayer/Champion) because of having to balance rage around your berserk. You will be constantly minmaxing your berserk uptime and that can make the playstyle much more hectic and hard to swallow for newer players to the archetype. A large nuance of the build is becoming more comfortable with your rotation and improving your game sense around berserk so that you can moreso 'feel' when it is appropriate to fight the degen or let berserk fall off and reset. This just comes with time put into the build and the archetype, and can't really be taught. It takes practicing your situational awareness to the point where you can decide when it is effective to keep berserk up versus letting it fade. Remember that berserk is not only a damage buff, it grants a large damage reduction buff as well, meaning it is incredibly important to have this up for high damage intake situations. --- Impale and How it Works Basically a portion of the damage you deal is stored and dealt back to the target each time you hit them. Impale has large synergy with slams because they hit so hard, meaning a large amount of damage is stored. This also makes impale with Call of Steel very effective for map clear, as you can hit mobs once, call of steel, and all of the impales are ripped out of the monsters, causing a large AoE explosion around each one. For single-target, you want to do the opposite. You can ignore the call of steel mechanic and just slam the boss. Call of steel is used purely as a clearspeed boost. ====== ENDGAME TIPS ================================================================================================================================================================================ --- Continue to use the Impale Mastery that grants increased AoE + use speed for Call of Steel until you get a Lord of Steel Unique Jewel. After that respec the mastery for Reduced Mana Reservation on Dread Banner! --- Annoints Zooming Maps? - Graceful Assault Damage? - Spinecruncher OR Bastion Breaker Spell Supp? - Courage OR Entrench OR Intuition (Read all 3, they are slightly different) --- Spell Suppession I played this build in gauntlet and did alright just itemizing for spell suppression. If you want to fit spell suppression into the build, you can definite just grab hybrid Armor/Evasion pieces and get like 50-80% spell supp pretty easily It'll make a noticable difference in survivability, but your defy pain will hit you harder in general mapping, whilst bosses will hit a lot softer. Personal choice to make, but in the current patch I think it's worth grabbing hybrid pieces and just grabbing spell suppression wherever you can get it even if you aren't specifically grabbing nodes on the tree for it. --- Won't I kill myself to Defy Pain? *Probably* not! In fact the defenses changes this patch were a MASSIVE buff overall to berserker especially since our main form of defense heavily relies on armor + physical mitigation. This league with armor being so buffed, and determination seeing use in this build, it is honestly much safer than past leagues, though you will still eventually want to get 100% Phys Reflect Reduction. One important note - You need to be using all armor base types, the exception being boots (Two-Tones that have evasion+armor, or Fugitive Boots evasion+es) armor is very very strong now and is mandatory to help with defy pain mitigation. If you find yourself getting chunked before finding better gear, you can spec into the Vanquisher notable on the tree (Use the Search Bar) and take the physical mastery that gives 60% Reduced Phys Reflect, and spec out later after getting either reduced physical reflect rings or a Warlord Influenced chestpiece crafted with 100% RPR. --- Why do you have a 7-link in the endgame setup? For general mapping, use Shockwave Support - Slot in Melee Physical Support for bosses! --- What pantheons do you take and why? So this patch with pantheons being reworked, taking soul of brine king + soul of gruthkul lets you be freeze, and (almost) shock + chill immune. Grab these pantheons, use the divine vessels to upgrade them, and use the reduced effect of shock+chill craft on either gloves or boots to trivialize ailments! If you're playing hardcore - do not ignore this, it's VERY IMPORTANT for staying alive! --- Warcry Rotation? What Do? Warcry rotations are generally separated into two sections - mapping and bossing Mapping - Typically for general mapping you only need 1-2 earthshatters to clear entire screens so your gameplay will typically look like: Slam > Slam > Rallying Cry > Call of Steel --- Slam > Intimidating Cry > Call of Steel ... etc Effectively, slam anywhere from 1-3 times as you run, use a warcry to pop the pillars, and then call of steel afterwards to clean up any stragglers. The actual order/rotation of the warcries is not very important here, as you don't need all the damage and call of steel will clean up anything that earthshatter misses. As a general rule of thumb - Keep rallying cry up as much as possible, use intimidating cry to help pop pillars and for tanky rares, and use enduring cry to pop pillars and to keep up max endurance charges. Bossing - There are two rotations for bossing - one based off the old seismic rotation, and a newer one revolving around rallying cry. Try both and see what you prefer, they are similar in dps. New Rallying Cry Rotation - Rallying Cry > Slam (x3) > Intimidating Cry > Slam (x3) > Repeat - Typically how I play is following this rotation and using enduring cry as needed to keep up endurance charges, to heal after being hit by the boss, and typically its the cry I will use to break my pillars if I have to move mid-rotation to help buffer the cooldown on the other two warcries. This is my preferred rotation after seismic cry got deleted from the game. (RIP) Old Seismic Rotation - Rallying Cry > Slam (x2) > Intimidating Cry > Slam (x3) > Enduring Cry > Repeat --- Best Mace Bases? Coronaul VS Imperial? Coronaul Mauls give 20% increasd AoE, with a 1.20 attack speed, and 91-136 base physical damage Imperial Mauls give 10% increased Strength, with a 1.10 attack speed, and 102-153 base physical damage To put it plainly, coronaul is going to allow you to map much faster, and is less reliant on having a very good craft because it has a higher base attack speed. Imperial maul is the better endgame setup, especially for bossing - but the weapon will also need to be crafted well as 1.10 attack speed without a high % attack speed suffix on the weapon will feel miserable to play and will lead to you constantly cancelling your earthshatter animation and thus getting no damage. One more important and overlooked fact is that with increased AoE on Earthshatter, you have pseudo survivability. For example, my berserker easily handled Maven 10-way invitations simply because I was able to earthshatter the bosses from an entire screen away. Meaning I never had to really interact with them. Whilst having a smaller AoE on earthshatter is definitely higher DPS on paper, it is also definitely more dangerous because of how close you have to be to your target. Tldr; Early-midgame and mapping as fast as possible - Coronaul Maul Bossing with as much damage + survivability as possible - Imperial Maul --- Why Did I use Coronaul Maul? Basically, as stated above. Pushing exp and the ladder at league start, I cared much more about map speed, and had 0 issues one shotting everything in T16 maps. I also fought sirus with the coronaul. Go with what you prefer, the only exception to this rule is if you plan to do serious endgame bossing. Imperial will be better. --- Item Level and its Importance for Crafting Gear in Path of Exile has Affixes. Craftable affixes consist of Prefixes and Suffixes. These affixes have Tiers that determine the strength of their rolls. Item level is important because higher tier affixes are locked behind higher item levels. For example, a very large breakpoint to aim for on a melee builds is to rush T6 maps as fast as possible, as item level 73 weapons can roll up to T2 % increased physical damage. Note that higher item level bases are **NOT** more likely to roll higher tier modifiers. However, they are ABLE to roll higher tier modifiers, so getting higher item level bases is always desirable, but not necessarily mandatory outside of certain key pieces of equipment. You can check required item levels as well as possible affix rolls and the likelihood to roll them (A.K.A. its 'weighting') at https://www.craftofexile.com/en , this site is absolutely invaluable for any and all crafting. Learning to navigate this site will help you progress much faster on your crafting journey in PoE! --- How do I craft my endgame maces? There are 2 main ways to go about crafting your weapon. Harvest and essences. You will want to utilize both to maximize your odds of receiving a good weapon as soon as possible as its incredibly important for the build - as well as Essence + Harvest atlas passives both being in Haewark Hamlet! For crafting melee weapons there are 4 key stats to prioritize - % Increased Physical Damage (I.E. 150% Increased Physical Damage) Flat Physical Damage (I.E. Adds 35-55 Physical Damage) Attack Speed (I.E. +20% Attack Speed) Hybrid % Physical Damage (I.E. +100 Accuracy and 20% Physical Damage) Essences - You will only want to slam your item with Shrieking (T2) or Deafening (T1) Essence of Contempts. These gaurantee a flat physical damage roll. Farm a large amount of essences and hit your mace until you get a good roll on 2 of the 4 stats listed above - Such as 130% Increased Physical Damage + 15% Increased Attack Speed. Since the contempt also puts on flat physical, you have a decent weapon. **IMPORANT NOTE** - You can't craft on Hybrid % physical, you can only roll it on the weapon. So for the best possible rolls, you want as high % hybrid physical roll as possible, and then bench craft T1 %phys (the craft costs 1 ex) OR getting ATLEAST T2+ % physical. If you don't hit T2 or higher % physical, than the T1 % phys bench craft + a hybrid roll is going to be better. Attack speed isnt absolutely mandatory early on, but for the endgame weapon you will absolutely need % attack speed rolls as well. Harvest - Slam your mace with all harvest reroll crafts listed here in order of importantance/likelihood of good stats - Physical > Attack > Speed Use the stat priortization listed above and just slam til you get what you need. Remember, there are beastcrafts for Add suffix remove prefix if you have no annuls and end up with a good weapon that needs a %phys craft but has full prefix slots. As well as the opposite, add prefix remove suffix if you need to open a suffix slot for attack speed. You can also sometimes get lucky and make an insane item with these rerolls. There are also harvest Keep Prefixes reroll Suffixes, and keep Suffixes reroll Prefixes. So if you get an insane prefix roll with great phys% and flat, but the item has no open suffixes and no attack speed roll, you can use a "Keep Prefixes reroll Suffixes" craft and it has a high chance to roll attack speed. --- How did I craft my other gear? This will be a list of what harvest + essence rerolls to use to achieve the gear listed in the gear section of the PoB. (Mace Excluded) Ordered from best to least optimal: Helmet - Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense (F/C/L = Fire/Cold/Lightning) Chest (Non-influenced) - Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense Chest (Warlord Influ.) - Physical, Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense - Physicals give a high chance to roll "100% Reduced Reflect Physical Damage Taken" which negates the downside of Defy Pain. Only Available on Warlord Influ. Gloves - Chaos, Life, Speed, F/C/L, Phyiscal, Defense Boots - Chaos, Life, Speed, F/C/L, Defense - It's sometimes preferable to have no movespeed affix on your boots so you can craft on movespeed + onslaught on kill. Amulet - Chaos, Life, Speed, F/C/L, Phyiscal, Defense - Try to get mana leech on your amulet or one of your rings to open up a jewel socket. Belt - Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Phyiscal, Defense - Sorrow essences are also a good way to craft the stygians as dexterity isn't in their modpool, so you can force dexterity on with Sorrows. Ring (Non-influenced) - Chaos, Life, Speed, F/C/L, Phyiscal, Defense - Open Prefixes are preferred on rings for minus mana cost crafts Ring (Warlord Influ.) - Caster >>> Chaos, Life, Speed, F/C/L, Phyiscal, Defense - Caster reroll gives a very high chance to roll vulnerability on hit. Roll caster recrafts until you get vuln on hit + life + resists. Crafting in PoE is very complex and hard to understand at first, if this section is confusing or hard to follow, feel free to reach out for additional help - in the comment section on youtube, in my discord (https://discord.gg/ywtwB2pM5a), or on twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/fizecs) I'll try my best to explain these concepts in realtime with a different angle that might help it easier to understand. But it's important to note that crafting in this game will take practice to truly understand. As with most things dealing with PoE, knowledge and experience are king. Just keep learning and collecting information as you play - and don't feel disheartened if it's difficult to grasp at first! We were all there!