You have something wrong. What counts as your MAXIMUM. Hp doesn't change. If your current is 26, and your normal maximum is 12, your heal does 14. Because only your MAXIMUM counts as 12. Your current is still 26 And yes, it works in the game
I think Endurance Footwraps deserves a mention for this character's boots. Her movement is already pretty good and enhancing a jump or 2 makes boots entirely unnecessary, while Endurance Footwraps can counteract over a third of the damage Blood Pact does in a scenario and cure Poison and Wound.
Necklace of Teeth was so OP when I ran it with the berserker. It was so fun and helps you feel comfortable with the health fluctuations and sacrifices you make to power up abilities
Yeah its a very fun item to use too. I just wish that Iron Helm and Eagle Eye Googles didn't exist because those two items tend to shape the game especially as they are available as starting items.
@@MandatoryQuest very true. Our party comp had another high HP character so it didn't feel as necessary to take the helm, but not having goggles for a sweet Burning Hatred is a bit of a bummer.
If you want to really make Flurry of Axes insane, get the Telescopic Lens. This changes it from a Range 3 to a Range 5 and you can jump into the doorway of a door on round 2 or even 1 and melt both rooms. Using a burn card to clear 2 rooms is totally worth the card. Toss in a major and minor power potions, Blood Pact, and a few other damage boosting things and you can do a base 11 damage to everything in a range of 5.
Nice guide! very thorough. Mostly agree with your picks but i would definitely pick Resolute Stand above Bounce Back. The damage potential at lvl 9 health combined with a spear, I find a use for it every single scenario towards the end. Also i do think Unstoppable Destruction is a worthy pickup if you play on harder difficulty where enemies sometimes have 4-5 Shield, since the Berserker has so many good cards you can easily swap it out when not needed, and Devil Horns kinda fills the same role as Burning Hatred or Maw of Madness.
Yeah I think those are fair choices too, I actually often run both resolute and bounce back (enhancing both eventually) but as you don't generally burn the top of bounce back its a safer choice for that first strengthen.
My partner recently retired his Cragheart and Berserkeress was his retirement reward :D Needless to say, he hates this class; he misses his Cragheart so much. I guess he'll get used to this lady once he learns how everything works, I might show this video to him. On the other hand, my reward for retiring the Brute was a Sun class. I'm happy :)
She is a really strong character so I would encourage him to give it a go. My favourite character is the Cragheart so I know the feeling. He could always choose to play another starting or unlocked character if he would prefer at any time, but I hope it clicks for him :)
@@MandatoryQuest Yeah :) My guess is Berserker just needs time to shine properly, and he's only level 3 with her. I think he just misses ranged attacks and collateral damage. :) We just had our arses handed to us last night in sewers, we had all 10 Oozes oozing around, $DDF#$@@ so he's a bit cross with Shakira the Berserker ;) I hope she'll get her chance to shine otherwise he'll be going back to Cragheart.
If you want to optimize the turn order example I would suggest you put the cards where you use the top part of the card on the top and the ones where you use the lower part on the bottom. Here your first and last (fifth) were that way and the other 3 in the middle were the other way around.
Another great video! On your final cards you have Defiance of Death showing instead of Bounce Back. Doh! One issue I see with the build overall is that it's, "all in" on multi target attacks without taking good single target attack cards. Vengeful Barrage over Bone Breaker (or even back to level 7's Careless Charge) in particular surprised me because you only have 1 fire generation card aside from drawing it as an attack modifier card. Besides Flurry of Axes, Maw of Madness is the only other card that I think benefits from it regularly. Also the top of Vengeful Barrage is a bit trash IMHO. Bone Breaker however is a great single damage card top and the fire generation means you can choose this OR Devil Horns in setting up Burning Hatred. The bottom also benefits from Blood Pact doing a lot of total damage the round it's played with a top attack. Careless Change you don't have to wound yourself, so it defaults to a a simple Move 3, Attack 4 (5 with Blood Pact) with a good initiative. Definitely not as good as Bone Breaker but a lot more flexible.
whoops! Yeah I think Bone Breaker is fine. I'll be honest this character isn't much fun from level 5 onwards for me in terms of decision space and often the cards are so close you can flip a coin. You have advantage so much and lots of multi target that the fire generation hasn't been a problem for me so I never really felt the need to add more.
Nice video. Thanks for the effort you put in! My Berserker build is much different: I like doing some kind of a glass canon. T1 Glasshammer kills always the strongest elite. Than resolute stand T2 on a second strong enemy. If the 2nd enemy is adjacent I immedatly put defiance of death on. Otherwise shadow armor helps with that 1 HP. In most cases she does not die. The three rescues from defiance are enough most of the time. (especially when paired with other control characters) She sometimes exhausts bevor end of scenario in earlier levels, but thats not too bad. Most enemies are dead by than. As I have reached lvl9 exhaustion is no problem anymore. I skilled my sun class to give her both burns back (Glass Hammer, Resolute Stand). She regular deals more than 200 damage per scenario. Not to mention crits on those 2 attacks, which lets her level up very fast. (a 40 damage Glass Hammer gives you 8XP)
I like an all in build too once in a while, but likes you say you need a supporting cast so I can’t in good faith recommend it to most people, but yeah you can level up so quickly using glass hammer and resolute stand with a few blesses in your deck 😉
thats my build, and literally cleared stage alone, in tabletop simulator with 3 people mission, and the pc gam, you can use the battle axe to, so you can oneshot 2 targets at time.
Still my favorite class. Favorite "magical Christmas land" event in table top was Flurry of Axes + double power potion + pendant of dark pacts -> double potion again + ally with Scroll of Power. With Blood Pact running attack 12 to an entire room. Kaboom. (Had Saw card that prevented negative conditions, so the pendant was basically free.)
Absolutely in love with your guides! Me and my party always look them up before picking up a new character. Any advice on the cthulu unlockable character? Would love to see a guide on him!!!
Awesome glad you are finding them useful! I am trying to stay in sync with Gloomhaven Digital with my class guides. The next two classes are likely Circles and Three Spears. I will be doing guides on every class eventually though 😀
Been playing physical and TTS for more than half a year and this is one of the classes I didn't play yet. Felt strange in digital however it's a tier S class. This helps me learn it faster.
Just very combo dependent and could do with a healer in the party. If you get off to a bad start or the scenario type is not to your advantage she came sometimes feel a bit awkward, but a very powerful character for sure.
My favorite thing I have done in gloomhaven is using flurry of axes and then using chimeric formula to give the music note flurry of axes and with her modifier deck it was insane.
I felt like these two together broke most of the game. Music note 2 song build is viable with a beserker. Here have pluse 1 damage and plus 1 range to flurry of axes.
Question: on cards like the bottom of The Maw of Madness, the clause says “where x is the amount of damage you suffered.” If you still have Blood Pact active and you suffer one damage on that, then suffer 5 damage from The Maw of Madness, wouldn’t that give you a +6 damage for the value of X?
Thanks for the guide! 2 quick questions: Was there any change in digital since this guide creation date regarding enhancements? I paid 100g for Strengthen on bounce back, and now I feel ripped off :D In the perk section you seem to imply that you might not wanna take the remaining perks in digital since the game gives you the option to not spend your perk points. What would be the reason for not picking up those perks? My understanding is that since they are all rolling modifiers you have left that taking them would not hurt your modifier deck
Yeah I started playing her and she's fun, but blood pact is something I'll start using when I have more health. I use the top part when I am already low on health and can get all my health back on the next turn early
I really enjoy the risk reward of playing with it, but yeah it can be a bit scary. If you have no heal support it can kill you quickly if your not careful.
I know this is a very late question, but I hope you get it. IYO, would a permanent strengthen be better than a +1 to all attacks? 2 enhancements required for strengthen, while a lost card and permanent wound is required for the +1. I'm really considering the strengthen, but haven't seen anyone talk about that strategy.
I've never been a maths bod when it comes to GH, but I'm pretty sure people have "run the numbers" on strengthen and it equates to +1.5'ish damage on average IIRC. Bolt also has an insane modifier deck so it might even be higher. I'm greedy and often run them both, but blood pact definitively becomes a bit overkill in later levels when you do have strengthen.
I like a lot of this, but i could not possibly disagree more with the evaluation of careless charge. This was without question my most key card as it enables *so* much. Traps nearby? Pushed into them. Going to be a threat to myself or allies with a multi-target perhaps? Immobilized. Maybe i want to shut 2 of them down. Throw in the battle axe (This comes up all the time in the tabletop). Wound myself? Whatever, Drakescale armor counters that neatly, and gives the berserker better control of her health on top of that. Nuke a single enemy? or even two? Pair it with fatal fury. Need to cross a long distance? Double move. A conveniently enhanceable move to move 4 for the horned helm, etc etc.. Whenever i had this one card in my hand, i was *Never* lacking an option. The strong top move, (Your only top move) Adds far more to this card than is readily apparent. The effect to me is simply gravy on that. Not to mention being a strong top move also makes it really easy to get that bit away from an ally if you really have to.
I might of been a bit harsh on the card, but I don't think it helps that its opposite one of the best cards this character ever gets. I didn't address it clearly in the video, but if you have to pay a cost to activate an ability you must be able to actually pay it, so if you are immune to wound you would have to wound at least an ally to activate it. This was clarified somewhere in the FAQ I believe, but not actually listed alongside this card. I'm not 100% on that, but I believe that's the case and its rules semantics for sure. This means immunity items don't mitigate this effect really unless of course your allies are always next to you. I think this might be the reason burn immunity was put on the bottom to stop this interaction. Immobilize is a soft control ability in that it only works against melee enemy actions most of the time, while probably useful in most scenarios it wont always be useful. Pushing into traps is excellent don't disagree with you there, but again that's on the condition traps exist and your enemies aren't flying. I do value a top move pretty highly for flexibility, but generally I play Bolt as a more combo focussed character with a set sequence, and strength in agony bottom usually fills all my movement needs. There are some super sweet combos you can pull off for sure, and you can make a case for any card in GH that's one of the reasons I love the game so much. Thanks for the in depth comment man really like getting stuck into cards :)
@@MandatoryQuest As far as the immunity interaction, that actually was how it worked! however that ruling got reversed later. boardgamegeek.com/thread/2518225/article/36178611#36178611 Certainly not going to blame anyone for missing that though. The card itself isn't too clear on it. I have digital as well and this is also how it works there last i played. And yes Burning hatred is undeniably my most useful repeatable AOE. (I actually saved up for a disarm enchant. It's so ridiculous). So i actually sacrificed my lvl 8 pick for it. Which was a lil rough, but gotta have that range 2 melee! heh Thanks for the reply! Take care!
I'm surprised so many people put down the bottom half of careless charge when I feel like that's too strong to ignore. Total condition immunity is pretty crazy. Sure, not every scenario throws poison and curses at you in large volumes, but the HARDEST SCENARIOS do. Seems mandatory for any tank build.
I think it suffers from a few problems. Firstly that Bolt isn't really a great tank, you can do some tanking but your abilities (at low levels) require you to self damage which on top of regularly enemy attacks make you much more fragile than it first appears. At higher levels she might grow into that role a little more, but by that point its likely you've already built her to be a damage dealer. She would need a lot of additional support from others to be a full tank. Secondly Burning Hatred is one of the best repeatable damage dealing cards in the game, so passing up that at 7 is always going to be hard. Why worry about getting negative conditions when the enemy is dead so cant do them anyway. Finally some items can also make you immune to the scary conditions like poison and wound, so its an effect that can be mostly replaced if desired. Being immune to all negative conditions in a vacuum can be fantastic, but like with a lot of things in GH its about the timing of when/how you get it.
@@MandatoryQuest thanks for the advice. As a follow up, I ended up taking both lvl 7 cards and skipping the lvl 8 cards. It felt pretty good to me. I could nuke whole rooms and take a lot of abuse back. When you're immune to muddle and poison you get a lot more value out of the perks that let you stun or heal (especially when you hit everything in range 2 ha ha). I think condition immunity is overall better than the Brute's 1 shield but not as good as the Sunkeeper's two shields (I've played all three in my grp I'm Mr. Tank apparently). It's like permanent 1.5 shield IMO.
Thanks for doing this guide. I'm slowly going through all the ones for the characters I've seen, and I like the insights you've provided here. I think my Bolt character is around level 5 and I chose the opposite card just about every time ;) . Evidently I wrote off Blood Pact at the start, so I never re-considered it later as I moved through the levels. I'll have to think about a reset & some swaps in some spots, but I still have fun w/ Reckless Offensive & added a +1 attack to it. Granted I'm also trying to do the half health bonuses, so it helps toward that end. One thing I always seem to have an issue with (and perhaps your build indirectly helps with that) is getting XP on each mission. Sometimes I'm just trying to survive so I have no choice, but way too many times I've come out of a scenario with just 4-6 XP. Is this poor play, or just the way this character advances?
Your card choices will certainly affect your rate of XP gain as reckless offensive gets you none and asks you to take a lot of damage, which is maybe why you keep finding yourself always fighting to survive . Blood pact is 2 XP straight up and you should be trying to hit defiance of death top pretty regularly. Most of the take 2 damage for an added bonus also give you an XP. You also have resolute stand as a big XP earner towards the end of the scenario just make sure you are strengthened, and if you can, pair it with an AOE weapon if you've come across them as you can get 5-6 XP off this card alone. Realistically I think coming out with 10-14 XP each scenario isn't too tricky if you use the right cards. I don't think its poor play as she does advance slower than some especially if you get into trouble early. Blood pact is actually OP, you spent a good amount of gold to enhance reckless offensive with a +1 when you had a card all along that could of given you that +1 for free ;)
@@MandatoryQuest I do try to take advantage of Resolute Stand whenever I can - even pulled off a 32-point attack once at my current level. I'll have to watch for those AOE weapons, though - that could be fun. But you're right about the Reckless Offensive card - I guess it's just a bit fun. I'll see if I've got that resetting of cards option to mess with Blood Pact a bit & good point on it being a lot cheaper - gold-wise anyway. I try to make good use of Defiance of Death, but sometimes the crew does too well or something & I may have to run over a trap or two just to trigger it. I play w/ 4 characters just to see more of what's available. I think I have had some runs where I got 10 XP before. I don't guess there's anything on the screen saying what you've gained this run, is there - just your running total?
Unfortunately not you only get that info on the end screen on digital. Blood pact will naturally help you get to lower health without having to use traps too. The Beserker is a tricky one to get right because too much damage and you end up fighting for your life, and not enough you don’t get to do your cool big attack. If you are having to walk on traps to self damage a lot then I would recommend bring more cards that allow you to damage yourself like numb the pain too.
G'day Very much enjoying your GH Guides and strategy info. Very analytical and an almost scientific approach to the intricacies of the game But a question, when describing some of the cards and options you sometimes use the term "Sideboard" Card or action. Would you mind detailing what you mean by this Thanks
Of course! Thanks for the nice comment. It’s a magic the gathering term which means a card that you might consider bringing into your deck when the situation suits. In magic you have a sideboard of cards that between games in a best of 3 match you can swap in to help between games. It might not be a card that is great all the time, but against certain enemies or in certain scenarios it can be very useful.
@@MandatoryQuest okay that makes sense I have been playing games since long before you were thought of (lols) started role-playing games like D&D in the early 80s, and to this day mainly playing very complicated and intricate wargames, primarily being called advanced squad leader (ASL). I have played a couple of card driven wargames such as paths of glory and its sister game pursuit of glory. But this is my first real card driven game of this type. So thank you for explaining some of your terminology, very much appreciated
Kudos again for a very helpful video. That said, just getting starting with Lightning Person and finding it to be slower XP gain. Trying to utilize all the XP gains and I do like the toon. But have you found early leveling to be slower than other characters.
Yes progress can be slower because most of the XP is linked to either single use cards or cards that can hurt you potentially capping your progress. However you do have some of the craziest cards that can give you insane XP gain like glass hammer with a 2X draw plus items, so although I don’t recommend them in the guide they are a legitimate ways to level very quickly.
So blood pact lasts the entire scenario? If that's the case unbridled power lasts the game too if I'm reading the marker right. So what's stopping you from healing when near death whenever you want?
The heal on Unbridled Power happens when you play the card for the first time, and the first time only. Then the persist effect that hangs around is the ability to overheal a maximum of 26 hit points. Its kind of weird to read on this card, but actions on persistent effects only happen on play, it is only the ability text that stays 'active' if you like . See also the Mindthiefs augments for other examples. Yes Blood Pact also stays out the entire scenario however you can always optionally remove (move to loss pile if burn or discard if not) any card in your active area so you can stop it from killing you. I hope this helps a bit.
I really like using her as a Burn tank; stacking effects to get rid of cards for lots of big damage in just a couple rounds is a lot of fun, and then you can use the rest of your party to just do mop up. You can dump your hp into dealing damage and with someone like the Soothsinger, you can ensure that you have lots of armor and strengthen and/or bless. Highly recommend 👌
You can play Insane with any party size, but with higher difficulties you need to rely on crowd control abilities a lot more like stun, disarm and immobilise. I like 3 because you usually have access to enough depending on characters chosen.
The final cards at 1:11:36 don't match the final cards you selected seconds prior in your level 9 section :/ Defiance of Death is pictured but Bounce Back is the recommended choice prior to that.
Ooops funny that's been there for so long and no-one else noticed. Sorry about that but the choice is bounce back especially with a strengthen enhancement!
I disagree with most of your decisions. But I am the player that plays the berserker at 1hp and soaks up all the damage. Here is the breakdown if you want to try it. Resolute Stand Strength in Agony Defiance of Death From the Brink level 2 Reckless Offensive level 4 Break the Chains level 5 Shiny Distraction level 6 Unstoppable Destruction level 8 Vengeful Barrage level 9 Immortality cycled out cards: level 3 Spiked Armor level 7 Seeing Red Platemail, Long Spear or Reaping Scythe, MoonEarings or StarEarings Sometimes get exhaustion about two turns from finish. But 7-29 extra XP per scenario.
That what different builds are for right, each character usually has at least two but you can mix them up a bit too. I just find this one to be my preferred most consistent one for higher difficulties and longer scenarios without added risk, but going full 1hp build is fine as long as you can support it. I very much dislike immortality though, damage mitigation effects are very underwhelming in the long run in my opinion, and compared to Maw of Madness its not even close. I can appreciate the dedication to the build idea though.
Unbridled power doesn’t affect your max health for abilities, so that combo doesn’t work I’m afraid. It’s only really good for going the full pay life build with a dedicated healer as support.
@@MandatoryQuest It says the difference between Current and Max. If current is 26, and Max is, say, 14, thats a difference of 10-12. IE. Abusing the max is unaffected effect.
Ahh I see your going the other way, still fatal fury says half so in your example it still only kills enemies with 5/6 or less health. Could be fun though playing solo and forcing it.
I do wish we could have a good long discussion about this class. I've put over 300 hours into Gloomhaven and the berserker, I've learned, is the only class that breaks the campaign. I liked your card analysis but you've missed some critical points on some of the cards. You did make a great point about the Berserkers side board. It's the only class whose side board I change out regularly based on the scenario and enemies I will face. I do feel you've done a great job with the analysis, however, this class is broken. It's absolutely broken, especially from 4 on. Last night we did the campaign scenario in which you free Orchids and on turn 1 did over 200 damage. This class is so brutal when you pair up his cards , items, and game mechanis properly.
She’s definitely a power house damage dealer that with a little co-ordination and items can get out of control. If you run her at any difficulty below +2 she can make the game pretty trivial at times past level 4. It also feels like no one did the actual math of what could be achievable with glass hammer and resolute stand. That kind of XP gain shouldn’t be in the game IMO but I love the effect. I also find she actually gets more boring the higher level she gets. I enjoy the taking damage to add effects coupled with half health threshold part of the character the most, and she loses that at higher levels. Then I feel the character starts to play itself kinda like eclipse does, you just follow the combo. You lose that danger of pushing it too far which makes it exciting. I put her in the same broken camp as three spears. Not obviously broken to your average player perhaps, but in the right hands absolutely busted.
@@MandatoryQuest I used to love Blood Pact... thought it was the pinnacle of the class.. and you get at it level 1, but I've changed my mind on it in the past 50+ hours with her. Now it's only put in the deck if I am hoping to achieve something insane and the reason I changed my mind is that the damage can't be chosen. You just suffer it. And with as much as you've played you know that scenarios often have 3 or 4 turns where you aren't attacking and while you can discard the card, you then have to get it back in place for other rooms. IMO.. that' just not useful. Once you see the berserker in the proper light.. that health = damage, you really take good care of your health. Of all the cards that she has, only one is utter garbage and that's one you don't have to take. Every other card, even the move 3, attack 4, take a wound card is an absolute MONSTER card. Once you remember how retaliate works (and this is the Berserker's largest weakness.. retaliate monsters.) This card goes from.. that doesn't look great to.. OMG.. this card is AMAZING. You get to walk into a group of retaliate monsters.. Nail one of them REALLY hard.. accept a wound (easy to remove) and then push them, lock them all in place and the one you hit can't retaliate you since he's out of range. Hello awesome combo.. followed up by.. Burning hatred.. with a fire (which you generated of course with a potion or an ally gives you)... Cause.. nothing at level 8 is nearly as flexible as those 2 cards.. so u take both once u hit level 8. She has such a crazy amount of damage and combo potential and handles so many things well at every level of the game that I've not found her to be nearly as boring as the other classes in the game. Plus putting over 100 damage on the final boss of the game at lvl 9 (btw.. the final boss had 184 life in our campaign) without drawing a single bless... can u say.. broken? We won on turn 4. That sunkeeper does some impressive damage if you spec her for it.. and the PH is.. well.. U know at level 9 just how busted that PH is.
@@MrMagyar5 Hey Man, I see you're obviously quite the berserker! Ive just unlocked her and am trying to figure out the best way to play her. So I am watching all the guides etc etc, but if you have spent over 50 hours on her you seem like you may be the right person to talk to - do you have any comments or a guide or anything I could look over? Cheers
@@hannahboswell4165 Nothing but my experience. The Berserker is an amazing character. The trick is to balance her damage intake with her abilities on the correct enemies. Play her like you would for any other class between lvls 1 and 4. Once her health pool is higher, she can take more advantage of the cards that cost life. For example, Strength in Agony is a fantastic level 1 card. It gives you an option on the top and bottom to take damage. I wouldn't do that UNLESS it was the end of the scenario and I really needed the movement or the damage. But the option is there for later in the scenario. Stay away from cards that require you to have less than half life. These are a trap and will get you killed more often than be useful. Cards that say.. "You may" are much more useful than cards that say "if your current HP max is less than half." Remember, it has to be LESS than half, not less than or equal to! Here's my recommendations for card choice at each level. Lvl 2. Break the chains (We struggle with XP. This has a VERY VERY useful top action and a move that can add XP with a fire). Lvl 3. Fatal Fury (Again, the top is free XP, and the bottom is just excellent as our modifier deck improves). Lvl 4. Flurry of Axes. (Now the shenanigans begin. OMG.. this card is broken. You can buff this thing to have a range of 5 and up to 11 damage by the end of the game. It's VERY VERY easy to get this to 6-8 damage by lvl 4 and clear whole rooms of enemies). Go late, Jump in, pop everything, take 4 damage. Clear an entire room. It's that simple. Pick a class that returns discarded cards to your hand and resets your spent items and you can do this twice a scenario and make it trivial. 5). Nothing here. Go back and take a card from lvl 4 or 3 or 2. Lvl 5 sucks for us. I like Shiny Distraction for the initiative and FREE top loot action!!! The bottom is also DEAD useful when using Flurry of axes so that you don't get a negated attack and can survive longer. 6). Unstoppable Destruction. Now it's just stupid. Both actions on this card or beautiful. Now you can deal with highly shielded enemies or just take a short rest and get back 2 HP and all spent items and STILL get to go on that turn. This card makes this class OP. Flurry of axes is strong, but it gets spent. It's a one off. This card is constant, ALL the time. It's unreal this is even in the game. 7). Burning Hatred. The little sister of Flurry of Axes. Good, but not as good as you can't buff it's range. It's great for enemies that didn't quite die in Flurry of axes. Wound is totally underrated as an ability. It's one of the best killers of shielded enemies there is. Wound them and move on. They die in 2 or 3 turns.. easy. 8). Vengeful Barrage: It's the bottom action that we want. This sets up your Flurry very nicely. Go late, have someone go before you and generate a fire with a mana potion or something. Your flurry of axes should have a +1 on it by now and you jump in with this and boots, Take 4 damage, and now you are baseline 6 damage. Use Potion to pump it to 8. Allies could have buffed you, or we can use rings (more in depth discussion) to pump you up to 9-11. Pop the item that extends your ranged attacks by 2. Also the item that bypasses shields. Hit EVERYTHING in a room, at range of 5, bypassing shields for 8-11 damage. W I N! 9). Dealers choice here. Maw of Madness is solid with solid initiative. YOu can go back and get Bone Breaker. Really up to you. At this point, you are fully online with one of the BEST modifier decks and room clearing abilities. You make Plague heralds look like chumps.. rofl If you want to discuss itemization (as Berserkers are EASY to itemize for) go to the Gloomhaven discord and we can discuss there.
No not really. I just used that as an example of how to get really good value out of her. You can play her very well much more casually or if you have a healer in your party it throws this all out anyway.
Yes it works, From the Brink actually takes the targets health into consideration which in this case isn't the bolt. So it would heal that particular character up to its max. Unbridled power doesn't come into it.
@@MandatoryQuest Oh, would never have interpreted the "your" in From the Brink to mean the health of the target of the heal... I guess it is the target doing the healing, then =)
I have a question. You keep mentioning mobs having 3-4 hp. I have almost never seen that. I have only played 4p digital guildmaster on normal is that why? Most enemies are between 6-12 hp
Not sure where I said that, but no enemies don’t normally have that low max health unless they are spirits. It might of been when I talk about kill cards that require enemies to already be at low health? If you can time stamp it I’ll try and elaborate for you. Increasing the difficulty level increase enemy health, number of players increases number of monsters only.
Interesting idea my only hesitation though is that sometimes your burns will be specific to the scenario and challenges presented. With more combo focussed characters though it will generally be the same. Thanks for the suggestion I'll have a think on upcoming guides to see if it will work.
Haha it’s an British turn of phrase that roughly means weighing something up or comparing them. So to say “on balance I prefer this” is to say “after comparing I think this is better”
If you click on your characters cards in the main map view, then in the top right you have a little mask symbol, click that, then reset mercenary appears in the bottom right ;)
Imo resolute stance top is one of the best cards. Pair it with a spear or scythe to hit 2-3 enemies for an attack 16-25 in later levels is just ridiculus strong and fun. At least at lower player count i even rate it higher than flurry of axes
You get rewarded for playing at very low health which is fun but dangerous. I do like both resolute stand and glass hammer as useful cards against bosses too especially as a 1-2 combo. Flurry has just insane AOE damage output potential though perhaps the most I’ve ever seen with items. This does diminish with less enemies at 2 player though. I do like the all in cards they are a lot of fun just make sure you have advantage to avoid the blow out ;)
In your suggested turn order you take 7 dmg just from yourself and without using the second stun (the strongest status in game!) and most importantly, without considering that therer might be enemys who also attack you!? You burn two realy strong cards and must probably use the cloak of invisibility and at least one potion to survive these 5 bloody turns somehow. All that for just 6 dmg more from blood pact? Sry, i love and appreciate your guides but this build doesn't work. In my runs this would have been suicidal. Even if you take the top part of bloodpact at the worst moment, the beginning, you take 5 dmg (so 2dmg less than with your routine and the lower part of the card) and you still deal 6dmg with the card. Plus it would be a singel target dmg which is most of the time better, because it takes a dmg source earlier out of the game as when you distribute the dmg over multiple targets.
I had no problem executing this build in my playthroughs, but I can appreciate that it does play very close to the edge and requires a complimentary party of a tank and healer. That turn order is really to demonstrate the power of the build and what a "perfect" sequence could look like from a damage and XP gain perspective. You want to start viewing your health as a resource with this character and plan a few turns ahead. I don't expect to be pulling that off every single round or in every single game, but It can be done and its awesome when it is. Gloomhaven would be boring if you had to play the same cards in the same order every single scenario. The reason why we don't play the bottom move stun is that we cant support it with the health loss from Blood Pact, but yes you could use that one too if you didn't want to run Blood Pact bottom active. You can also of course opt to not take damage on both Dazing Wound and Strength in Agony if you don't need the stun or extra damage, but the ideas is to get us to Defiance of Death top and Growing Rage bottom as quick as possible which this achieves.
@@MandatoryQuest In the item section you were hovering over items and it showed the name of the character equipping said item. At 1:16:38 it reveals the name of Triforce. I quit watching at that point so I don't know if it happened again.
Apologies for that its hard when filming inside Digital to hide everything. I can’t guarantee that it doesn’t happen again, but it would only be inside the item sections so if you avoid those you will be good. Thanks though for bringing it to my attention.
awful guide. not because of the cards you picked but on the explanation. they don't work like you sometimes think. but some tipps are useful and point in the right direction. #nooffense
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You have something wrong. What counts as your MAXIMUM. Hp doesn't change.
If your current is 26, and your normal maximum is 12, your heal does 14.
Because only your MAXIMUM counts as 12. Your current is still 26
And yes, it works in the game
I think Endurance Footwraps deserves a mention for this character's boots. Her movement is already pretty good and enhancing a jump or 2 makes boots entirely unnecessary, while Endurance Footwraps can counteract over a third of the damage Blood Pact does in a scenario and cure Poison and Wound.
playing digital, unlocked the 'Zerker and this guide is awesome! thank you for creating
Have fun she's amazing :)
Necklace of Teeth was so OP when I ran it with the berserker. It was so fun and helps you feel comfortable with the health fluctuations and sacrifices you make to power up abilities
Yeah its a very fun item to use too. I just wish that Iron Helm and Eagle Eye Googles didn't exist because those two items tend to shape the game especially as they are available as starting items.
@@MandatoryQuest very true. Our party comp had another high HP character so it didn't feel as necessary to take the helm, but not having goggles for a sweet Burning Hatred is a bit of a bummer.
Man I been waiting for this for so long
If you want to really make Flurry of Axes insane, get the Telescopic Lens. This changes it from a Range 3 to a Range 5 and you can jump into the doorway of a door on round 2 or even 1 and melt both rooms. Using a burn card to clear 2 rooms is totally worth the card. Toss in a major and minor power potions, Blood Pact, and a few other damage boosting things and you can do a base 11 damage to everything in a range of 5.
Also pair it with a small Quatryl friend for bless spam before hand 😉
Nice guide! very thorough. Mostly agree with your picks but i would definitely pick Resolute Stand above Bounce Back. The damage potential at lvl 9 health combined with a spear, I find a use for it every single scenario towards the end. Also i do think Unstoppable Destruction is a worthy pickup if you play on harder difficulty where enemies sometimes have 4-5 Shield, since the Berserker has so many good cards you can easily swap it out when not needed, and Devil Horns kinda fills the same role as Burning Hatred or Maw of Madness.
Yeah I think those are fair choices too, I actually often run both resolute and bounce back (enhancing both eventually) but as you don't generally burn the top of bounce back its a safer choice for that first strengthen.
My partner recently retired his Cragheart and Berserkeress was his retirement reward :D Needless to say, he hates this class; he misses his Cragheart so much. I guess he'll get used to this lady once he learns how everything works, I might show this video to him. On the other hand, my reward for retiring the Brute was a Sun class. I'm happy :)
She is a really strong character so I would encourage him to give it a go. My favourite character is the Cragheart so I know the feeling. He could always choose to play another starting or unlocked character if he would prefer at any time, but I hope it clicks for him :)
@@MandatoryQuest Yeah :) My guess is Berserker just needs time to shine properly, and he's only level 3 with her. I think he just misses ranged attacks and collateral damage. :) We just had our arses handed to us last night in sewers, we had all 10 Oozes oozing around, $DDF#$@@ so he's a bit cross with Shakira the Berserker ;) I hope she'll get her chance to shine otherwise he'll be going back to Cragheart.
At level 4 she gets an amazing card that he will fall in love with 😉
If you want to optimize the turn order example I would suggest you put the cards where you use the top part of the card on the top and the ones where you use the lower part on the bottom. Here your first and last (fifth) were that way and the other 3 in the middle were the other way around.
Thanks for the feedback I’ll ensure I do that next time
Great enhancement tip! Strengthening Bounce Back!!!!
Another great video! On your final cards you have Defiance of Death showing instead of Bounce Back. Doh!
One issue I see with the build overall is that it's, "all in" on multi target attacks without taking good single target attack cards. Vengeful Barrage over Bone Breaker (or even back to level 7's Careless Charge) in particular surprised me because you only have 1 fire generation card aside from drawing it as an attack modifier card. Besides Flurry of Axes, Maw of Madness is the only other card that I think benefits from it regularly. Also the top of Vengeful Barrage is a bit trash IMHO.
Bone Breaker however is a great single damage card top and the fire generation means you can choose this OR Devil Horns in setting up Burning Hatred. The bottom also benefits from Blood Pact doing a lot of total damage the round it's played with a top attack. Careless Change you don't have to wound yourself, so it defaults to a a simple Move 3, Attack 4 (5 with Blood Pact) with a good initiative. Definitely not as good as Bone Breaker but a lot more flexible.
whoops! Yeah I think Bone Breaker is fine. I'll be honest this character isn't much fun from level 5 onwards for me in terms of decision space and often the cards are so close you can flip a coin. You have advantage so much and lots of multi target that the fire generation hasn't been a problem for me so I never really felt the need to add more.
Nice video. Thanks for the effort you put in! My Berserker build is much different: I like doing some kind of a glass canon. T1 Glasshammer kills always the strongest elite. Than resolute stand T2 on a second strong enemy. If the 2nd enemy is adjacent I immedatly put defiance of death on. Otherwise shadow armor helps with that 1 HP. In most cases she does not die. The three rescues from defiance are enough most of the time. (especially when paired with other control characters)
She sometimes exhausts bevor end of scenario in earlier levels, but thats not too bad. Most enemies are dead by than. As I have reached lvl9 exhaustion is no problem anymore. I skilled my sun class to give her both burns back (Glass Hammer, Resolute Stand). She regular deals more than 200 damage per scenario. Not to mention crits on those 2 attacks, which lets her level up very fast. (a 40 damage Glass Hammer gives you 8XP)
I like an all in build too once in a while, but likes you say you need a supporting cast so I can’t in good faith recommend it to most people, but yeah you can level up so quickly using glass hammer and resolute stand with a few blesses in your deck 😉
thats my build, and literally cleared stage alone, in tabletop simulator with 3 people mission, and the pc gam, you can use the battle axe to, so you can oneshot 2 targets at time.
Still my favorite class. Favorite "magical Christmas land" event in table top was Flurry of Axes + double power potion + pendant of dark pacts -> double potion again + ally with Scroll of Power. With Blood Pact running attack 12 to an entire room. Kaboom. (Had Saw card that prevented negative conditions, so the pendant was basically free.)
Love a good wombo combo on her, feels so awesome when you pull it off.
My bro and I just unlocked this one, and he’s super pumped to try it with the brute!
It’s a great character and one of the most fun unlocks in my opinion if damage is your jam.
Absolutely in love with your guides! Me and my party always look them up before picking up a new character. Any advice on the cthulu unlockable character? Would love to see a guide on him!!!
Awesome glad you are finding them useful! I am trying to stay in sync with Gloomhaven Digital with my class guides. The next two classes are likely Circles and Three Spears. I will be doing guides on every class eventually though 😀
Been playing physical and TTS for more than half a year and this is one of the classes I didn't play yet. Felt strange in digital however it's a tier S class. This helps me learn it faster.
Just very combo dependent and could do with a healer in the party. If you get off to a bad start or the scenario type is not to your advantage she came sometimes feel a bit awkward, but a very powerful character for sure.
My favorite thing I have done in gloomhaven is using flurry of axes and then using chimeric formula to give the music note flurry of axes and with her modifier deck it was insane.
Haha love it. If only she got her own song buffs too.
I felt like these two together broke most of the game. Music note 2 song build is viable with a beserker. Here have pluse 1 damage and plus 1 range to flurry of axes.
Great guide! The final cards section has a mismatch with the lv9 selected cards (where you have Defiance of Death selected instead of Bounce Back)
Yeah my bad, glad you enjoyed the guide!
Thanks!
Question: on cards like the bottom of The Maw of Madness, the clause says “where x is the amount of damage you suffered.” If you still have Blood Pact active and you suffer one damage on that, then suffer 5 damage from The Maw of Madness, wouldn’t that give you a +6 damage for the value of X?
This is late but no, the X in that case is only related to the X you chose to suffer for that care (so 0-5)
Thanks for the guide!
2 quick questions:
Was there any change in digital since this guide creation date regarding enhancements? I paid 100g for Strengthen on bounce back, and now I feel ripped off :D
In the perk section you seem to imply that you might not wanna take the remaining perks in digital since the game gives you the option to not spend your perk points. What would be the reason for not picking up those perks? My understanding is that since they are all rolling modifiers you have left that taking them would not hurt your modifier deck
Yeah I started playing her and she's fun, but blood pact is something I'll start using when I have more health. I use the top part when I am already low on health and can get all my health back on the next turn early
I really enjoy the risk reward of playing with it, but yeah it can be a bit scary. If you have no heal support it can kill you quickly if your not careful.
You are the man
No you the man!
I know this is a very late question, but I hope you get it. IYO, would a permanent strengthen be better than a +1 to all attacks? 2 enhancements required for strengthen, while a lost card and permanent wound is required for the +1. I'm really considering the strengthen, but haven't seen anyone talk about that strategy.
I've never been a maths bod when it comes to GH, but I'm pretty sure people have "run the numbers" on strengthen and it equates to +1.5'ish damage on average IIRC. Bolt also has an insane modifier deck so it might even be higher. I'm greedy and often run them both, but blood pact definitively becomes a bit overkill in later levels when you do have strengthen.
I like a lot of this, but i could not possibly disagree more with the evaluation of careless charge. This was without question my most key card as it enables *so* much. Traps nearby? Pushed into them. Going to be a threat to myself or allies with a multi-target perhaps? Immobilized. Maybe i want to shut 2 of them down. Throw in the battle axe (This comes up all the time in the tabletop). Wound myself? Whatever, Drakescale armor counters that neatly, and gives the berserker better control of her health on top of that. Nuke a single enemy? or even two? Pair it with fatal fury. Need to cross a long distance? Double move. A conveniently enhanceable move to move 4 for the horned helm, etc etc..
Whenever i had this one card in my hand, i was *Never* lacking an option. The strong top move, (Your only top move) Adds far more to this card than is readily apparent. The effect to me is simply gravy on that. Not to mention being a strong top move also makes it really easy to get that bit away from an ally if you really have to.
I might of been a bit harsh on the card, but I don't think it helps that its opposite one of the best cards this character ever gets. I didn't address it clearly in the video, but if you have to pay a cost to activate an ability you must be able to actually pay it, so if you are immune to wound you would have to wound at least an ally to activate it. This was clarified somewhere in the FAQ I believe, but not actually listed alongside this card. I'm not 100% on that, but I believe that's the case and its rules semantics for sure. This means immunity items don't mitigate this effect really unless of course your allies are always next to you. I think this might be the reason burn immunity was put on the bottom to stop this interaction. Immobilize is a soft control ability in that it only works against melee enemy actions most of the time, while probably useful in most scenarios it wont always be useful. Pushing into traps is excellent don't disagree with you there, but again that's on the condition traps exist and your enemies aren't flying. I do value a top move pretty highly for flexibility, but generally I play Bolt as a more combo focussed character with a set sequence, and strength in agony bottom usually fills all my movement needs. There are some super sweet combos you can pull off for sure, and you can make a case for any card in GH that's one of the reasons I love the game so much. Thanks for the in depth comment man really like getting stuck into cards :)
@@MandatoryQuest As far as the immunity interaction, that actually was how it worked! however that ruling got reversed later. boardgamegeek.com/thread/2518225/article/36178611#36178611
Certainly not going to blame anyone for missing that though. The card itself isn't too clear on it. I have digital as well and this is also how it works there last i played.
And yes Burning hatred is undeniably my most useful repeatable AOE. (I actually saved up for a disarm enchant. It's so ridiculous). So i actually sacrificed my lvl 8 pick for it. Which was a lil rough, but gotta have that range 2 melee! heh
Thanks for the reply! Take care!
Wow interesting he reversed that so long after release. It makes me wonder if Frosthaven has some spicy things in store which might apply too!
I'm surprised so many people put down the bottom half of careless charge when I feel like that's too strong to ignore. Total condition immunity is pretty crazy. Sure, not every scenario throws poison and curses at you in large volumes, but the HARDEST SCENARIOS do. Seems mandatory for any tank build.
I think it suffers from a few problems. Firstly that Bolt isn't really a great tank, you can do some tanking but your abilities (at low levels) require you to self damage which on top of regularly enemy attacks make you much more fragile than it first appears. At higher levels she might grow into that role a little more, but by that point its likely you've already built her to be a damage dealer. She would need a lot of additional support from others to be a full tank. Secondly Burning Hatred is one of the best repeatable damage dealing cards in the game, so passing up that at 7 is always going to be hard. Why worry about getting negative conditions when the enemy is dead so cant do them anyway. Finally some items can also make you immune to the scary conditions like poison and wound, so its an effect that can be mostly replaced if desired. Being immune to all negative conditions in a vacuum can be fantastic, but like with a lot of things in GH its about the timing of when/how you get it.
@@MandatoryQuest thanks for the advice. As a follow up, I ended up taking both lvl 7 cards and skipping the lvl 8 cards. It felt pretty good to me. I could nuke whole rooms and take a lot of abuse back. When you're immune to muddle and poison you get a lot more value out of the perks that let you stun or heal (especially when you hit everything in range 2 ha ha). I think condition immunity is overall better than the Brute's 1 shield but not as good as the Sunkeeper's two shields (I've played all three in my grp I'm Mr. Tank apparently). It's like permanent 1.5 shield IMO.
Thanks for doing this guide. I'm slowly going through all the ones for the characters I've seen, and I like the insights you've provided here. I think my Bolt character is around level 5 and I chose the opposite card just about every time ;) . Evidently I wrote off Blood Pact at the start, so I never re-considered it later as I moved through the levels. I'll have to think about a reset & some swaps in some spots, but I still have fun w/ Reckless Offensive & added a +1 attack to it. Granted I'm also trying to do the half health bonuses, so it helps toward that end. One thing I always seem to have an issue with (and perhaps your build indirectly helps with that) is getting XP on each mission. Sometimes I'm just trying to survive so I have no choice, but way too many times I've come out of a scenario with just 4-6 XP. Is this poor play, or just the way this character advances?
Your card choices will certainly affect your rate of XP gain as reckless offensive gets you none and asks you to take a lot of damage, which is maybe why you keep finding yourself always fighting to survive . Blood pact is 2 XP straight up and you should be trying to hit defiance of death top pretty regularly. Most of the take 2 damage for an added bonus also give you an XP. You also have resolute stand as a big XP earner towards the end of the scenario just make sure you are strengthened, and if you can, pair it with an AOE weapon if you've come across them as you can get 5-6 XP off this card alone. Realistically I think coming out with 10-14 XP each scenario isn't too tricky if you use the right cards. I don't think its poor play as she does advance slower than some especially if you get into trouble early. Blood pact is actually OP, you spent a good amount of gold to enhance reckless offensive with a +1 when you had a card all along that could of given you that +1 for free ;)
@@MandatoryQuest I do try to take advantage of Resolute Stand whenever I can - even pulled off a 32-point attack once at my current level. I'll have to watch for those AOE weapons, though - that could be fun. But you're right about the Reckless Offensive card - I guess it's just a bit fun. I'll see if I've got that resetting of cards option to mess with Blood Pact a bit & good point on it being a lot cheaper - gold-wise anyway. I try to make good use of Defiance of Death, but sometimes the crew does too well or something & I may have to run over a trap or two just to trigger it. I play w/ 4 characters just to see more of what's available. I think I have had some runs where I got 10 XP before. I don't guess there's anything on the screen saying what you've gained this run, is there - just your running total?
Unfortunately not you only get that info on the end screen on digital. Blood pact will naturally help you get to lower health without having to use traps too. The Beserker is a tricky one to get right because too much damage and you end up fighting for your life, and not enough you don’t get to do your cool big attack. If you are having to walk on traps to self damage a lot then I would recommend bring more cards that allow you to damage yourself like numb the pain too.
G'day
Very much enjoying your GH Guides and strategy info. Very analytical and an almost scientific approach to the intricacies of the game
But a question, when describing some of the cards and options you sometimes use the term "Sideboard" Card or action. Would you mind detailing what you mean by this
Thanks
Of course! Thanks for the nice comment. It’s a magic the gathering term which means a card that you might consider bringing into your deck when the situation suits. In magic you have a sideboard of cards that between games in a best of 3 match you can swap in to help between games. It might not be a card that is great all the time, but against certain enemies or in certain scenarios it can be very useful.
@@MandatoryQuest okay that makes sense
I have been playing games since long before you were thought of (lols) started role-playing games like D&D in the early 80s, and to this day mainly playing very complicated and intricate wargames, primarily being called advanced squad leader (ASL). I have played a couple of card driven wargames such as paths of glory and its sister game pursuit of glory. But this is my first real card driven game of this type.
So thank you for explaining some of your terminology, very much appreciated
@@neilandrews2797 No problem Magic has been a big influence on my gaming and sometimes I take some short hand stuff for granted.
Bolt是我最喜欢的角色。用和不用这个角色真的差别好大。他的卖血攻击以及那个大范围群攻技能再加上全程的反击攻击技能太牛了。给他配上音乐家再加上能够重置BURNING CARD的技能角色就是绝配。基本上一路清场就过了。
I used translate and I think I understood. Flurry of Axes best card :)
Kudos again for a very helpful video. That said, just getting starting with Lightning Person and finding it to be slower XP gain. Trying to utilize all the XP gains and I do like the toon. But have you found early leveling to be slower than other characters.
Yes progress can be slower because most of the XP is linked to either single use cards or cards that can hurt you potentially capping your progress. However you do have some of the craziest cards that can give you insane XP gain like glass hammer with a 2X draw plus items, so although I don’t recommend them in the guide they are a legitimate ways to level very quickly.
So blood pact lasts the entire scenario?
If that's the case unbridled power lasts the game too if I'm reading the marker right. So what's stopping you from healing when near death whenever you want?
The heal on Unbridled Power happens when you play the card for the first time, and the first time only. Then the persist effect that hangs around is the ability to overheal a maximum of 26 hit points. Its kind of weird to read on this card, but actions on persistent effects only happen on play, it is only the ability text that stays 'active' if you like . See also the Mindthiefs augments for other examples. Yes Blood Pact also stays out the entire scenario however you can always optionally remove (move to loss pile if burn or discard if not) any card in your active area so you can stop it from killing you. I hope this helps a bit.
I really like using her as a Burn tank; stacking effects to get rid of cards for lots of big damage in just a couple rounds is a lot of fun, and then you can use the rest of your party to just do mop up. You can dump your hp into dealing damage and with someone like the Soothsinger, you can ensure that you have lots of armor and strengthen and/or bless. Highly recommend 👌
Hi! What do you think is the right party size to play insane? And if you can explain why, thanks in advance
You can play Insane with any party size, but with higher difficulties you need to rely on crowd control abilities a lot more like stun, disarm and immobilise. I like 3 because you usually have access to enough depending on characters chosen.
@@MandatoryQuest Thank you very much for your reply, it will be really useful to me❤️
The final cards at 1:11:36 don't match the final cards you selected seconds prior in your level 9 section :/
Defiance of Death is pictured but Bounce Back is the recommended choice prior to that.
Ooops funny that's been there for so long and no-one else noticed. Sorry about that but the choice is bounce back especially with a strengthen enhancement!
I disagree with most of your decisions. But I am the player that plays the berserker at 1hp and soaks up all the damage. Here is the breakdown if you want to try it.
Resolute Stand
Strength in Agony
Defiance of Death
From the Brink
level 2 Reckless Offensive
level 4 Break the Chains
level 5 Shiny Distraction
level 6 Unstoppable Destruction
level 8 Vengeful Barrage
level 9 Immortality
cycled out cards:
level 3 Spiked Armor
level 7 Seeing Red
Platemail, Long Spear or Reaping Scythe, MoonEarings or StarEarings
Sometimes get exhaustion about two turns from finish. But 7-29 extra XP per scenario.
That what different builds are for right, each character usually has at least two but you can mix them up a bit too. I just find this one to be my preferred most consistent one for higher difficulties and longer scenarios without added risk, but going full 1hp build is fine as long as you can support it. I very much dislike immortality though, damage mitigation effects are very underwhelming in the long run in my opinion, and compared to Maw of Madness its not even close. I can appreciate the dedication to the build idea though.
Unbridled Power -> Fatal Fury is a really fun low level build.
Unbridled power doesn’t affect your max health for abilities, so that combo doesn’t work I’m afraid. It’s only really good for going the full pay life build with a dedicated healer as support.
@@MandatoryQuest It says the difference between Current and Max. If current is 26, and Max is, say, 14, thats a difference of 10-12. IE. Abusing the max is unaffected effect.
Ahh I see your going the other way, still fatal fury says half so in your example it still only kills enemies with 5/6 or less health. Could be fun though playing solo and forcing it.
I do wish we could have a good long discussion about this class. I've put over 300 hours into Gloomhaven and the berserker, I've learned, is the only class that breaks the campaign. I liked your card analysis but you've missed some critical points on some of the cards. You did make a great point about the Berserkers side board. It's the only class whose side board I change out regularly based on the scenario and enemies I will face. I do feel you've done a great job with the analysis, however, this class is broken. It's absolutely broken, especially from 4 on. Last night we did the campaign scenario in which you free Orchids and on turn 1 did over 200 damage. This class is so brutal when you pair up his cards , items, and game mechanis properly.
She’s definitely a power house damage dealer that with a little co-ordination and items can get out of control. If you run her at any difficulty below +2 she can make the game pretty trivial at times past level 4. It also feels like no one did the actual math of what could be achievable with glass hammer and resolute stand. That kind of XP gain shouldn’t be in the game IMO but I love the effect. I also find she actually gets more boring the higher level she gets. I enjoy the taking damage to add effects coupled with half health threshold part of the character the most, and she loses that at higher levels. Then I feel the character starts to play itself kinda like eclipse does, you just follow the combo. You lose that danger of pushing it too far which makes it exciting. I put her in the same broken camp as three spears. Not obviously broken to your average player perhaps, but in the right hands absolutely busted.
@@MandatoryQuest I used to love Blood Pact... thought it was the pinnacle of the class.. and you get at it level 1, but I've changed my mind on it in the past 50+ hours with her. Now it's only put in the deck if I am hoping to achieve something insane and the reason I changed my mind is that the damage can't be chosen. You just suffer it. And with as much as you've played you know that scenarios often have 3 or 4 turns where you aren't attacking and while you can discard the card, you then have to get it back in place for other rooms. IMO.. that' just not useful. Once you see the berserker in the proper light.. that health = damage, you really take good care of your health. Of all the cards that she has, only one is utter garbage and that's one you don't have to take. Every other card, even the move 3, attack 4, take a wound card is an absolute MONSTER card. Once you remember how retaliate works (and this is the Berserker's largest weakness.. retaliate monsters.) This card goes from.. that doesn't look great to.. OMG.. this card is AMAZING. You get to walk into a group of retaliate monsters.. Nail one of them REALLY hard.. accept a wound (easy to remove) and then push them, lock them all in place and the one you hit can't retaliate you since he's out of range. Hello awesome combo.. followed up by.. Burning hatred.. with a fire (which you generated of course with a potion or an ally gives you)... Cause.. nothing at level 8 is nearly as flexible as those 2 cards.. so u take both once u hit level 8. She has such a crazy amount of damage and combo potential and handles so many things well at every level of the game that I've not found her to be nearly as boring as the other classes in the game. Plus putting over 100 damage on the final boss of the game at lvl 9 (btw.. the final boss had 184 life in our campaign) without drawing a single bless... can u say.. broken? We won on turn 4. That sunkeeper does some impressive damage if you spec her for it.. and the PH is.. well.. U know at level 9 just how busted that PH is.
@@MrMagyar5 Hey Man, I see you're obviously quite the berserker! Ive just unlocked her and am trying to figure out the best way to play her. So I am watching all the guides etc etc, but if you have spent over 50 hours on her you seem like you may be the right person to talk to - do you have any comments or a guide or anything I could look over? Cheers
@@hannahboswell4165 Nothing but my experience. The Berserker is an amazing character. The trick is to balance her damage intake with her abilities on the correct enemies. Play her like you would for any other class between lvls 1 and 4. Once her health pool is higher, she can take more advantage of the cards that cost life. For example, Strength in Agony is a fantastic level 1 card. It gives you an option on the top and bottom to take damage. I wouldn't do that UNLESS it was the end of the scenario and I really needed the movement or the damage. But the option is there for later in the scenario. Stay away from cards that require you to have less than half life. These are a trap and will get you killed more often than be useful. Cards that say.. "You may" are much more useful than cards that say "if your current HP max is less than half." Remember, it has to be LESS than half, not less than or equal to! Here's my recommendations for card choice at each level.
Lvl 2. Break the chains (We struggle with XP. This has a VERY VERY useful top action and a move that can add XP with a fire).
Lvl 3. Fatal Fury (Again, the top is free XP, and the bottom is just excellent as our modifier deck improves).
Lvl 4. Flurry of Axes. (Now the shenanigans begin. OMG.. this card is broken. You can buff this thing to have a range of 5 and up to 11 damage by the end of the game. It's VERY VERY easy to get this to 6-8 damage by lvl 4 and clear whole rooms of enemies). Go late, Jump in, pop everything, take 4 damage. Clear an entire room. It's that simple. Pick a class that returns discarded cards to your hand and resets your spent items and you can do this twice a scenario and make it trivial.
5). Nothing here. Go back and take a card from lvl 4 or 3 or 2. Lvl 5 sucks for us. I like Shiny Distraction for the initiative and FREE top loot action!!! The bottom is also DEAD useful when using Flurry of axes so that you don't get a negated attack and can survive longer.
6). Unstoppable Destruction. Now it's just stupid. Both actions on this card or beautiful. Now you can deal with highly shielded enemies or just take a short rest and get back 2 HP and all spent items and STILL get to go on that turn. This card makes this class OP. Flurry of axes is strong, but it gets spent. It's a one off. This card is constant, ALL the time. It's unreal this is even in the game.
7). Burning Hatred. The little sister of Flurry of Axes. Good, but not as good as you can't buff it's range. It's great for enemies that didn't quite die in Flurry of axes. Wound is totally underrated as an ability. It's one of the best killers of shielded enemies there is. Wound them and move on. They die in 2 or 3 turns.. easy.
8). Vengeful Barrage: It's the bottom action that we want. This sets up your Flurry very nicely. Go late, have someone go before you and generate a fire with a mana potion or something. Your flurry of axes should have a +1 on it by now and you jump in with this and boots, Take 4 damage, and now you are baseline 6 damage. Use Potion to pump it to 8. Allies could have buffed you, or we can use rings (more in depth discussion) to pump you up to 9-11. Pop the item that extends your ranged attacks by 2. Also the item that bypasses shields. Hit EVERYTHING in a room, at range of 5, bypassing shields for 8-11 damage. W I N!
9). Dealers choice here. Maw of Madness is solid with solid initiative. YOu can go back and get Bone Breaker. Really up to you. At this point, you are fully online with one of the BEST modifier decks and room clearing abilities. You make Plague heralds look like chumps.. rofl
If you want to discuss itemization (as Berserkers are EASY to itemize for) go to the Gloomhaven discord and we can discuss there.
Is strenghen still worth it on bounce back for 100 gold?
Absolutely
Is the Berzerker really this flowcharty? Cus it makes it not fun.
No not really. I just used that as an example of how to get really good value out of her. You can play her very well much more casually or if you have a healer in your party it throws this all out anyway.
Can you heal an ally with from the brink if your current hp is more than your maximum health (unbridled power)?
Yes it works, From the Brink actually takes the targets health into consideration which in this case isn't the bolt. So it would heal that particular character up to its max. Unbridled power doesn't come into it.
@@MandatoryQuest Oh, would never have interpreted the "your" in From the Brink to mean the health of the target of the heal... I guess it is the target doing the healing, then =)
I have a question. You keep mentioning mobs having 3-4 hp. I have almost never seen that. I have only played 4p digital guildmaster on normal is that why? Most enemies are between 6-12 hp
Not sure where I said that, but no enemies don’t normally have that low max health unless they are spirits. It might of been when I talk about kill cards that require enemies to already be at low health? If you can time stamp it I’ll try and elaborate for you. Increasing the difficulty level increase enemy health, number of players increases number of monsters only.
What’s missing from all of these videos are priority cards to burn during a long rest.
Interesting idea my only hesitation though is that sometimes your burns will be specific to the scenario and challenges presented. With more combo focussed characters though it will generally be the same. Thanks for the suggestion I'll have a think on upcoming guides to see if it will work.
What does "on balance" mean? I hear you say that quite often, but I don't understand it.
Haha it’s an British turn of phrase that roughly means weighing something up or comparing them. So to say “on balance I prefer this” is to say “after comparing I think this is better”
How did you get to respec your cards and percs in your characther?
If you click on your characters cards in the main map view, then in the top right you have a little mask symbol, click that, then reset mercenary appears in the bottom right ;)
I found it! Thanks a lot!
Imo resolute stance top is one of the best cards.
Pair it with a spear or scythe to hit 2-3 enemies for an attack 16-25 in later levels is just ridiculus strong and fun.
At least at lower player count i even rate it higher than flurry of axes
You get rewarded for playing at very low health which is fun but dangerous. I do like both resolute stand and glass hammer as useful cards against bosses too especially as a 1-2 combo. Flurry has just insane AOE damage output potential though perhaps the most I’ve ever seen with items. This does diminish with less enemies at 2 player though. I do like the all in cards they are a lot of fun just make sure you have advantage to avoid the blow out ;)
I am terrible at Gloomhaven and I accept it
In your suggested turn order you take 7 dmg just from yourself and without using the second stun (the strongest status in game!) and most importantly, without considering that therer might be enemys who also attack you!? You burn two realy strong cards and must probably use the cloak of invisibility and at least one potion to survive these 5 bloody turns somehow. All that for just 6 dmg more from blood pact?
Sry, i love and appreciate your guides but this build doesn't work. In my runs this would have been suicidal.
Even if you take the top part of bloodpact at the worst moment, the beginning, you take 5 dmg (so 2dmg less than with your routine and the lower part of the card) and you still deal 6dmg with the card. Plus it would be a singel target dmg which is most of the time better, because it takes a dmg source earlier out of the game as when you distribute the dmg over multiple targets.
I had no problem executing this build in my playthroughs, but I can appreciate that it does play very close to the edge and requires a complimentary party of a tank and healer. That turn order is really to demonstrate the power of the build and what a "perfect" sequence could look like from a damage and XP gain perspective. You want to start viewing your health as a resource with this character and plan a few turns ahead. I don't expect to be pulling that off every single round or in every single game, but It can be done and its awesome when it is. Gloomhaven would be boring if you had to play the same cards in the same order every single scenario. The reason why we don't play the bottom move stun is that we cant support it with the health loss from Blood Pact, but yes you could use that one too if you didn't want to run Blood Pact bottom active. You can also of course opt to not take damage on both Dazing Wound and Strength in Agony if you don't need the stun or extra damage, but the ideas is to get us to Defiance of Death top and Growing Rage bottom as quick as possible which this achieves.
You are the only non cringe youtu.be channel talking about GH ad FH in a meaningful, interesting, professional, and intelligent way.
This guide is out of date correct?
Nope, why would you say that?
I liked the guide but I won't be watching any others since you spoil other character identities while discussing this one.
Oh crap did i? which one and when because I'm usually very careful not to. Could you give me a timestamp please?
@@MandatoryQuest In the item section you were hovering over items and it showed the name of the character equipping said item. At 1:16:38 it reveals the name of Triforce. I quit watching at that point so I don't know if it happened again.
Apologies for that its hard when filming inside Digital to hide everything. I can’t guarantee that it doesn’t happen again, but it would only be inside the item sections so if you avoid those you will be good. Thanks though for bringing it to my attention.
I’m
awful guide. not because of the cards you picked but on the explanation. they don't work like you sometimes think. but some tipps are useful and point in the right direction. #nooffense
Sorry you felt that way. Perhaps I didn't explain things clearly enough at points.