These are some simple tests that I have done involving berserks to determine how long they last with my character and his stats. They only determine duration and the range of fatigue and inner fire hit upon completion. This is probably all common knowledge, but did so out of my own curiosity. As I am not a scholarly type and am unsure of how to go about testing to see the approximate strength of the boosts they provide to my character, I did not do anything to gauge them. If someone can give me some examples of how to do so, I would gladly attempt them.

There has been some debate over how much Discipline affects berserks, especially in relation to other physical stats such as Strength, Agility, and Stamina. I am curious how my results stand compared to someone with higher Discipline, or if there even is a change in duration. Other people's results with the same test would be gladly appreciated as to compare. This is what is posted on Phii's Keep as far as Discipline and Berserks are concerned:

DISCIPLINE AND BERSERKS

Your potential power of a berserk is still determined by the Barbarian's Strength, Stamina, and Agility. Discipline is a negatively influencing stat toward a berserk within the whole scheme of its proportion toward Strength, Stamina and Agility. As mentioned, higher discipline will also increase the penalty to the INT/WIS loss experienced in berserks. Ultimately you will have to decide whether you want more powerful dances or berserks, since discipline heavily negates berserks, and supports dances.

There are three primary stages of berserks when it comes to power:
1. Your Barbarian has attained a high point of potential for the stat boost and skill boost when using berserks.
2. Your Barbarian has attained a high point of potential for the stat boost, but your skill boost begins to diminish when using berserks.
3. Your Barbarian has potentially lost much of your stat boost and skill boost when using berserks.



THE TEST

Very crude and simply done. All Berserks were engaged with full inner fire and against a creature at melee range, therefore being "in combat." Nothing was killed during the berserks' duration. I used a stopwatch to record the time and meditated upon a chakrel amulet directly after berserk completion to get the level of inner fire. The fatigue hit was also recorded directly after completion and is indicated in parenthesis. The following character was used:

Circle 72 Gor'Tog barbarian

Strength : 65 Reflex : 45
Agility : 45 Charisma : 10
Discipline : 25 Wisdom : 20
Intelligence : 20 Stamina : 55

As one can tell, my barbarian has been trained in not being versatile, but with strong general combat stats and with Berserks being the only abilities used. Definitely a one trick pony, as his roars and dances are generally useless, I would imagine. Due to the rather unknown strength of berserks at higher levels as all high level barbarians I know train up Discipline, I am intentionally training in a way to test their strengths at higher levels. I believe I heard that berserks boosts set amounts and not percentages, and therefore become weaker comparatively to dances as you get bigger. Until the re-write and more is laid out about how things are going to be, I don't think I'm going to change my ways as I am stubborn and enjoy his combat ability.


The following, which was acquired by Phii's Keep, was used to gauge the level of inner fire hit and is accurate as to whether I was standing or kneeling, stunned or not stunned upon completion of berserks. They are indicated in the results as Level with the appropriate number indicated.

Inner Fire Level Berserking Outcome
1 -a brilliant aura of pristine quality burning outward at twice your height........................................................................Standing, minor fatigue hit
2 -a brilliant aura of beautiful flames extending nearly twice your height above your body................................................Standing, minor fatigue hit
3 -a brilliant aura of beautiful flames extending a little more than one and half times your height above your body..........Standing, minor fatigue hit
4 -a brilliant aura of flames that extends over your height again above you........................................................................Standing, minor fatigue hit
5 -a brilliant aura of flames that extends nearly your full height again above you................................................................Kneeling, moderate fatigue hit
6 -a brilliant aura of beautiful flames extending a little over half your height again above you........................................... Kneeling, moderate fatigue hit
7 -a brilliant aura of beautiful flames extending out around you about half again your height.............................................Kneeling, moderate fatigue hit
8 -a bright aura of beautiful flames extending out around you just beyond the reach of your arms......................................Prone, stunned, heavy fatigue hit
9 -a bright aura of beautiful flames extending a quarter of your height above you...............................................................Prone, stunned, heavy fatigue hit
10 -a bright aura of beautiful flames...................................................................................................................................... Prone, stunned, heavy fatigue hit
11 -a small aura of beautiful flames........................................................................................................................................Prone, stunned, heavy fatigue hit
12 -a tiny aura of beautiful flames..........................................................................................................................................Prone, stunned, heavy fatigue hit
13 -a dim glow as if a flame lurked just out of sight...............................................................................................................Prone, stunned, heavy fatigue hit


OUTCOME

STONE
Duration - 29 minutes 30 seconds
Outcome - Level 1 (tired)

BLOOD
Duration - 29 minutes 31 seconds
Outcome - Levil 1 (winded)

NIGHTMARE
Duration - 29 minutes 20 seconds
Outcome - Levil 1 (tired)

FLAME
Duration - 39 seconds
Outcome - Level 5 (tired)

CYCLONE
Duration - 19 minutes 1 second
Outcome - Level 5 (fatigued)

STEEL
Duration - 13 minutes 41 seconds
Outcome - Level 1 (tired)


I did not attempt Grave as I have not been motivated to seek out Charak and gain the ability, even though I am at level to acquire it. I am incredibly happy with Berserk Steel, as I expected a lower duration and a stronger inner fire hit, yet upon completion I was at full inner fire, even without killing anything to aid in recovery. Cyclone last longer than I expected, but did have the ending result I figured it would: kneeling, but not stunned. None of the ones I tested ended in a stun and the strongest inner fire hits still resulted in the first tier of the "kneeling" outcomes. The only time I have been stunned during berserks was when I one time stacked Stone, Blood, and Cyclone. I was extremely unhappy with how short the duration of Flame, especially considering it is gained at 20th circle and 52 circles later it is still useless unless against a single opponent which you need to blitz attack to survive.

I am curious as to whether or not the berserks are set for exact lengths of time, and if raising Discipline lowers the duration. Example: Stone/Blood/Nightmare for 30 minutes, Flame for 45 secconds, Cyclone for 20 minutes, Steel for 15 minutes, etc and that my 25 in Discipline is enough to have lowered it to where it now rests. The percentages are not even across the board for how much time would have been lost from those estimations, but it's an interesting thought I think. I would like to see the different durations other barbarians are attaining under the same circumstances set: no killing, started from full inner fire and at melee range.

Anyways, hope these findings are even remotely interesting to you guys. I know it was what I expected with the exception of how terrible the duration and end Flame gave and the joy of knowing I could run Steel back to back for a long time due to low inner fire usage. I now only wish Steel was stackable.

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Battle Lord Wartug Skullcleaver
Gor'Tog Barbarian

"You live and die by the only thing you can control: your choices. Choose wisely."

>> I am curious as to whether or not the berserks are set for exact lengths of time, and if raising Discipline lowers the duration.

People who trained to be dancers will dispute this, but my experience was that there is a big hit at 26 discipline. I was training my barb similarly, keeping discipline below my physicals. I was keeping my discipline at least 5-6 points below str, stam, etc. When I trained discipline to 26 I saw a big hit to berserk power and duration. The power is difficult to measure, but the duration decreased by about 25%.

I'd be interested in your results if you hit 26 discipline, since your physicals are at least 20 points higher than your disc.

>>People who trained to be dancers will dispute this, but my experience was that there is a big hit at 26 discipline.

This is false; there isn't really a way I can sugar-coat it. My berserks are as powerful as they have ever been, and duration most certainly did not take a hit when I raised discipline from 20 to 21 or 25 to 26.

Not saying it's impossible that discipline penalizes berserks somehow, but it certainly isn't true at that level.

Perhaps it was imagined? One thing to keep in mind is that, while Blood's offensive boost is fierce at level two, it's pretty moderate at level forty. That could be oen of the reasons you think power is being lowered by raising discipline, even though the power is largely static.

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Right now the Moon Mage place on the "combat pet totem pole" is the part that's sunk into the earth to lower the pole's center of gravity.
-Armifer de Dragonrealms