Berserker sphere (Spheres in Review)

[SangoProduction]

Link (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WpO2R9P_5RJPYR1JOBhlR8N_VZWqUF8kHDLqDR89Qo0/edit?usp=sharing)

Preamble: Disassembling a tree and toting it to another town has left me with a swollen back and I need something to take my mind off of it.

Post-Review Analysis:
Not a… fantastic sphere. Not dumpster tier. I love the concept of synergizing with battered so that it’s not a useless condition, but is actually a key to some bigger, badder effects. Heck, I kind of wished that more spheres had that design philosophy (especially when they have base spheres that basically do nothing but inflict battered).

And the Genie’s Wrath advanced talent is definitely a winner - especially from the “wow, that’s cool,” side of things, and giving you a reason to want to use the bonus damage of Brutal Strike.

The design of “a small effect that lasts while battered” is neat. It’s definitely got a use. But man… It’s going to feel soooo bad when you’ve spent like 5 turns wailing on it to stack up your debuffs… and in one action, it removes them all.

So you’ve got to keep the debuffing to a point where it doesn’t make sense to care to remove the debuff… but up enough to make your investment in making it work is also not worthless. It’s a very strange psychological balance you have to strike.

[SangoProduction]

I do suddenly realize why these are taking so long to finish, compared to before.

When I was making these reviews in the forums, I felt restricted to exclusively 1-3 sentence summaries for talents, including the overall impression. The truly exceptional ones got a full second paragraph.

With Google Docs having very clear and easy to use delineation of talents, I was freed up to give better explanations of my impressions. Especially with the clear, easy-to-read list being the bookmark list to the side of the page.

I think that it's an improvement in quality, since it's not just an assessment, but an explanation for how that assessment was arrived at.

But I have to wonder, especially with the significantly lower engagement, on average: Do you guys actually appreciate this perhaps-overexplained style, or should I return to the couple-sentence version?

[Kitsuneymg]

I do suddenly realize why these are taking so long to finish, compared to before.

When I was making these reviews in the forums, I felt restricted to exclusively 1-3 sentence summaries for talents, including the overall impression. The truly exceptional ones got a full second paragraph.

With Google Docs having very clear and easy to use delineation of talents, I was freed up to give better explanations of my impressions. Especially with the clear, easy-to-read list being the bookmark list to the side of the page.

I think that it's an improvement in quality, since it's not just an assessment, but an explanation for how that assessment was arrived at.

But I have to wonder, especially with the significantly lower engagement, on average: Do you guys actually appreciate this perhaps-overexplained style, or should I return to the couple-sentence version?

Part of my issue is that I have a hard time reading gdocs on my phone. So it has to wait Until I’m at a computer. Which means I usually forget :(

Also SoM is just not as fun as SoP.

Berserking as a GM is amazing. Slap this and Guardian for delayed damage on any “beater” monster and their stamina goes through the roof. Once they get Cold Iron’s Call and similar, and they become ridiculously sticky. They may not just get mowed down by the PCs!

[Seerow]

Not a… fantastic sphere. Not dumpster tier. I love the concept of synergizing with battered so that it’s not a useless condition, but is actually a key to some bigger, badder effects. Heck, I kind of wished that more spheres had that design philosophy (especially when they have base spheres that basically do nothing but inflict battered).



Very confused here. Berserker is basically the golden standard for melee spheres.

Despite everything in SoM being centered around the Attack Action, Brutal Strike is the only Special Attack Action base sphere ability for melee in SoM, making it basically at minimum a mandatory dip for literally every martial character that does not intend to dip into magical options. Like you rate it N-M when it is the primary reason the sphere is considered a must have.


Then add on to that that Berserking is free action gain a good chunk of temporary HP that you can use every turn. While Berserking's scaling isn't the best, your first 4-5 levels it's a secondary ability of a sphere that will instantly make you the tankiest person in the party and capable of making it through most on level encounters without taking real damage. Even at high levels, by that point AC is falling off in usefulness and you're looking for miss chances instead, it's effectively free HP.

[QuadraticGish]

While I think the Berserker Sphere is fun, sadly a lot of stuff there isn't good. Though on Barbaric Throw I honestly thought it was a common thing to know about the normal rules for two-handed throwing. IIRC I don't think it was hard to miss on the PFSRD when reading on how throwing worked. I think it's a fun thing since it opens you up to reasonably abusing Barrage with Butchering Axes so you can suddenly start dishing out 6d6+8(3d6+4 each attack) at first level if you can manage to swing the talents and feats for it. If you're doing that Reaper's Momentum because a beast. Reaper's Momentum is fun when it's going, but otherwise I can't really defend the Berserker sphere as much as I think things like Rift Strike are cool.


Part of my issue is that I have a hard time reading gdocs on my phone. So it has to wait Until I’m at a computer. Which means I usually forget :(

Also SoM is just not as fun as SoP.

Berserking as a GM is amazing. Slap this and Guardian for delayed damage on any “beater” monster and their stamina goes through the roof. Once they get Cold Iron’s Call and similar, and they become ridiculously sticky. They may not just get mowed down by the PCs!

Yeah, the big issue is that they held back for SoM and it really shows in places like the Berserker sphere.

[SangoProduction]

It's the only melee special attack action? Now this... I did not realize. But I am also doubtful. Let me quickly go through them.

Alchemy: Nope. Athletics: Nope. Barrage: Range. Barroom: Not Special. Beast Mastery Nope. Boxing: Not special. Brute: move action. Dual Wielding: Not special. Duelist: Not special. Equipment: No base sphere.

Fencing: Not special. Gladiator: Nope. Guardian: Not attack action. Lancer: Not special. Open Hand: Not special. Scoundrel: Nope. Scout: Nope. Shield: Nope. Sniper: ranged. Trap: Nope. Warleader: Nope. Wrestling: Nope.


Well. What'd you know? You weren't wrong. So, by being the only melee special attack action, it is effectively a rider effect to whatever normal attack action you intended (if that attack action was spend on attacking). Still, the base line effect is really rather bad. Which is why the (exertion) talents are given their own

And in my defense, there are classes / archetypes which use special attack actions, so pointing it out does make sense. For instance I am running a Bonewright Armorist on my Monday games.
So there, the choice is: Do you use the SAA on making them battered, or do you snap their limbs as you suck out their marrow? I have to say, one is substantially more interesting than the other.

But like I said, while I maintain that the sphere isn't fantastic - it is neither incredibly interesting nor incredibly powerful (becoming an absolute sponge notwithstanding) - it is definitely not terrible.



On to the topic of throwing 2 handed for massive damage: Please enlighten me on the throwing build you propose. Or at least the core parts. I've seen precisely 0 throwing builds in person, and the ones that I saw posted about were extremely negative. (And no one, out of the hundreds I've played with, has ever even attempted to throw their main melee weapon except as a joke.) So getting perspective from someone who has seen otherwise will be very helpful.

[AmberVael]

Part of my issue is that I have a hard time reading gdocs on my phone. So it has to wait Until I’m at a computer. Which means I usually forget :(

Yeah, this. It's not just harder to read on a phone, it adds this extra step to access that's kind of a nuisance. I barely have an opinion on the change in review length, because I'm now less likely to read it in the first place.

[QuadraticGish]

On to the topic of throwing 2 handed for massive damage: Please enlighten me on the throwing build you propose. Or at least the core parts. I've seen precisely 0 throwing builds in person, and the ones that I saw posted about were extremely negative. (And no one, out of the hundreds I've played with, has ever even attempted to throw their main melee weapon except as a joke.) So getting perspective from someone who has seen otherwise will be very helpful. It was just a combination I noticed looking at two-handed through and it's soemthing I've never tried myself, but here's my attempt to throw something together. Sorry in advance it it looks ugly. It also has a stipulation that Fast Draw/Quick Draw lets you pick up weapons made by Armory Arena as a free action.

Human Conscript 1/ Lingchi Warrior Armorist 1
Ability Scores: 19 Str, 14 Int or Wis, whatever else you want given you have a dump stat

Combat Tradition
Brutal Thrower, free Equipment Sphere Talent*, Berserker Sphere, Barrage Sphere
Conscript Bonus Talent: Barbaric Throw
Conscript Bonus Feat: Extra Combat Talent: Crushing Thrower
Human Bonus: Quick draw or Fast Draw combat talent*
Traits: whatever; can't think of any off hand

*If you want you can grab Custom Training early for Butchering axes, but money is too tight for me to recommend it. Consider armor if you dumped dex or unarmored training if you didn't. If you're fine with light armor, grab Fast Draw and then use your feat to get Farshot.

So first level you can throw spears at people fairly well. They're a simple weapon with a 1d8 damage dice and a 20ft range increment. Your attack sequence is to move and barrage with your spears at a +4(+1 BAB, +4 Str, +1 PBS, -2 Barrage) each dealing 1d8+6+1 for an average of 11.5 damage per hit. Spears are also very cheap at 2gp.

Second level is where the fun begins because you can now get an exotic weapon, which is the Butchering Axe. You should have at least 3 spell points. Basically whenever combat starts you want to drop down an Armor Arena and begin throwing Butchering Axes. The Butchering axe is an exotic two-handed weapon with 3d6 damage dice and a x3 critical range. So now, you will be picking up masterwork butchering axes and barraging those to deal 3d6+6+1 damage twice(average of 17.5 per hit) with an attack roll of +6(+2 BAB, +4 Str, +1 PBS, +1MW, -2 Barrage) while you're within 10ft of your target.

I got some ideas on ways to build on this, but I'll wait for a response first in case I made a mistake.

[SangoProduction]

Ah yes. It does open up Barrage to a much more damaging weapon. And with Lingchi Warrior, you don't have to worry about investing in getting it to come back to you in time to do that.

That's interesting.

[Rynjin]

Chalk me up as another "WTF?". Berserker is one of the strongest Spheres in the system, and it's difficult to justify not spending the talent to gain Berserking and Savage Strike at the very least. By level 5 an extra +10 damage is not "tiny", and it combos well with another Sphere it's hard to justify not taking a couple Talents in: Brute.

Combined, the two options give you the ability to do excellent damage even when you need to move, and alone Savage Strike is still pretty good. Though typically I take the Weakling drawback because the Battered part IS pretty meh and i don't much care for most of the Exertion talents.

I also think you severely underestimate Reaper's Momentum. It's solid as a pure melee character, and extremely good as one with a secondary ranged focus. I've mentioned my former Barroom expert before, who was able to easily pick up and chuck anything at hand for a good chunk of damage as a free action. Dropping someone to 0 or lower is not exactly a rare occurrence, and combined with Advancing Carnage it makes for a solid "martial AoE".

Ignoring how much damage a Brutal Strike can deal also makes you underrate (to the point of listing it as a fluff talent) Bloody Counter. Particularly if you take Great Focus, so you can expend it to also deal the extra damage, Brutal Strike often leads to scenarios where you're in a win-win. A lot of the time you kill an enemy if you've been paying attention to how much abuse they've taken; piling on an extra 2d6+7+6+2+10 or so is nothing to sneeze at at level 5, so you take no damage. Other times they hit you, but you have massive temp HP and maybe the ability to delay damage from Guardian so it can be soaked by your renewable temp HP later so you deal a bunch of damage to them and...still take zero damage yourself. As an immediate action.

Berserker as a Sphere is pretty darn good on its own, and absolutely godlike when combined with other Spheres (particularly Brute and Guardian).

[QuadraticGish]

Ah yes. It does open up Barrage to a much more damaging weapon. And with Lingchi Warrior, you don't have to worry about investing in getting it to come back to you in time to do that.

That's interesting.

To make it better, there are some good paths for getting more damage. Two levels of Mystic Magus nets you Advanced Spellstrike, which let's you channel touch spells through one attack. This attack, is counted as an attack action. So you can stack on destructive blast for more damage on that first hit. Another way is going through Prodigy for three levels to get up to a 5 link sequence. At 5, you can use the Doombringer finisher to get another attack by giving up your move action at link 5. Anyway, that one level dip in Lingchi Warrior is enough to cover your weapon needs till you can buy a returning Butchering Axe. Also of note is that you can pick up Armory Arena as a one level dip into Incanter by picking the Sword Birth Specialization.

Anyway, I become very aware of Lingchi shennanigans the one time I got to make a 3.PP 30th level tristalt.

[SangoProduction]

Chalk me up as another "WTF?". Berserker is one of the strongest Spheres in the system, and it's difficult to justify not spending the talent to gain Berserking and Savage Strike at the very least. By level 5 an extra +10 damage is not "tiny", and it combos well with another Sphere it's hard to justify not taking a couple Talents in: Brute.

Combined, the two options give you the ability to do excellent damage even when you need to move, and alone Savage Strike is still pretty good. Though typically I take the Weakling drawback because the Battered part IS pretty meh and i don't much care for most of the Exertion talents.

I also think you severely underestimate Reaper's Momentum. It's solid as a pure melee character, and extremely good as one with a secondary ranged focus. I've mentioned my former Barroom expert before, who was able to easily pick up and chuck anything at hand for a good chunk of damage as a free action. Dropping someone to 0 or lower is not exactly a rare occurrence, and combined with Advancing Carnage it makes for a solid "martial AoE".

Ignoring how much damage a Brutal Strike can deal also makes you underrate (to the point of listing it as a fluff talent) Bloody Counter. Particularly if you take Great Focus, so you can expend it to also deal the extra damage, Brutal Strike often leads to scenarios where you're in a win-win. A lot of the time you kill an enemy if you've been paying attention to how much abuse they've taken; piling on an extra 2d6+7+6+2+10 or so is nothing to sneeze at at level 5, so you take no damage. Other times they hit you, but you have massive temp HP and maybe the ability to delay damage from Guardian so it can be soaked by your renewable temp HP later so you deal a bunch of damage to them and...still take zero damage yourself. As an immediate action.

Berserker as a Sphere is pretty darn good on its own, and absolutely godlike when combined with other Spheres (particularly Brute and Guardian).

I did say that +2 / level is just a bit less than a free destructive blast, as a regular hit rather than a touch attack. And rather than being free, spends your martial focus. And restricted to melee (or thrown with a talent).
Of course, if it were actually free, then it would be simply a rider bit of bonus damage, and quite possibly degenerate, thanks to the ability to keep stacking things on attacks.

As far as Bloody Counter goes, it's either an extra attack as a swift attack that relies on the enemy targeting you... which is fine, and fairly standard. But has the fluffy distinction of forcing them to hit you rather than responding when they miss. The Fluff rating is not disparaging. Just that its distinguishing characteristic is that it has a particular flavor to it.
If you spent your focus in this Counter, then... OK, you've dealt some additional bit of damage, and the attack now cost a swift action and either a move action, or another swift action in 2 turns, during which time you don't have your focus. I don't find that particularly compelling when there are so many things to spend the focus on.
(This is before the (exertion) talents. Yes.)

Now, you might have a point about Reaper's Momentum. Especially for DMs who prefer larger numbers of smaller enemies. My issue is that you get your bonus... when you're done with the enemy. And only if you are the one to finish them off.
If you take your role as martial DPR seriously, and have encounter design conducive to it, I can see it having a use. When I next awaken, I should try and reevaluate them.

And I whole-heartedly agree that Berserker sphere has great synergy, particularly with Guardian sphere. I do not generally take those synergies into account (which is definitely a folly, as no character is going to be exclusively in any non-Alchemy SoM sphere - but that gets real complicated real fast, and once I set a precedent...), but with Guardian being so notable, I should definitely note it under Berserking.

Can you explain how Brute sphere is particularly synergistic though?

[Rynjin]

The combination of Shove, Focused Might, and Greater Shove lets you get pseudo-Pounce that gives you your Martial Focus back, every turn by Brutal Striking (bonus points for combining it with Vital Strike) and Shoving any time you need to move. Having Great Focus and (if you want to get really fancy) Forbidden Consumption Technique lets you retain a second focus for if you need it off-turn as well.

Greater Shove also just lowkey does a lot of damage on its own, since Str+1/2 BaB+Power Attack (+Weapon Enhancement and Special Abilities with Slapper) adds up quick when it's basically guaranteed to hit (it's a Touch attack).

Of the "get your Focus back as a Move action" methods, Focused Might is one of the best, if not the top pick IMO.

[SangoProduction]

....Interesting. I'll really have to try it out in a real game, and get back to you on that. But the point is very compelling, and makes good sense for a damage-focused martial type.

I've got a related character that could probably slot in what you suggested... now just... need to find a game to use it in. And then the free time to play the game. (I say as though the phone call will actually lead to anything...)