 Berserker |
Fugitive: Brawler | Tier 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (3 pt): The lower your health, the more damage you do. When your health is below 50%, you will do up to 250% more melee and saw damage. | ||
| Ace (6 pt): The lower your health, the more damage you do. When your health is below 50%, you will do up to 100% more damage with ranged weapons as well. Note: Does not apply to grenade launchers. Entering berserker state negates regeneration effects. | ||
Berserker |
Enforcer | Tier 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (4 pt): The lower your health, the more melee damage you do. When your health is below 25%, you will do up to 250% more melee and saw damage. | ||
| Ace (8 pt): When your health is below 25%, you will do up to 100% more damage with ranged weapons. | ||
Mechanics
Berserker grants an increasingly larger boost to melee, saw, and ranged damage as the player's health decreases. The lower the player's health, the more damage will be dealt, until the maximum amount of 250% bonus melee/saw damage and 100% ranged damage is reached at 0% health. Because the player will enter bleedout mode at 0% health, the maximum benefit from this skill can only be achieved when the player is using their weapon from bleedout mode. For every percentage point of health the player has below 50%, the player will gain an extra 2% ranged damage and an extra 5% melee/saw damage. [1]
The Frenzy skill sets your maximum health to 30%, which will grant a 100% melee damage boost and 40% ranged damage boost when used with Berserker Aced.
This damage bonus is applied after effects such as Pumping Iron.
Strategy
Berserker is an outstanding skill for enforcers seeking to maximize their damage. It is exceptionally useful on Death Wish, as players being revived will always be beneath 50% health. In order to maintain the damage bonus offered by Berserker without dying frequently, it is recommended to wear the heaviest armor possible. It's also in effect during bleedout when Aced, allowing you to unleash a deadly last stand against nearby enemies and improve the chances of eliminating nearby hostiles quickly before going into full bleedout.
For players looking to breach and loot, this skill is one of the most point-efficient improvements for the saw. The damage increase on the saw also applies when used on objects. When the saw is brought along on bank heists, players with this skill can lower their health to around 30% before using it on the safety deposit boxes. This health level is obtained roughly at the time a heister plays the voice line calling for a medkit. If health is lowered in this fashion, it will only take one tap instead of two to open deposit boxes, effectively halving ammo consumption.
Its use has been severly diminished for saw users since the release of the The Butcher Mod Pack 2 which contains upgrades for the saw allowing single-hit opening of safes without use of this skill. This does however mean points that used to go into Berserker can be put towards more useful skills depending on the saw-user's build.
Whilst this skill saw a short period of reduced effectiveness due to a number of perk decks (namely Infiltrator, Sociopath, and Gambler) providing health recovery effects, more recent updates have changed the system so that entering the 'Berserker state' disables said health recovery effects.
This skill synergizes with the Yakuza perk deck, which grants armour recovery rate and movement speed bonuses under similar low-health conditions - up to 60% faster armour recovery and 20% faster movement.
On difficulties below Deathwish, the skill Combat Medic (Tier 1 in the Mastermind skill tree), can be very counter-productive, as it grants them 30% more health, thus disabling Berserker and forcing the carrier of the saw to re-enable the skill. This can be mitigated with the use of Frenzy.
Trivia
- The word "berserker" is usually used to depict a combatant who gain a significant degree of pain resistance via an adrenaline-induced rage, often triggered after taking a large amount of physical damage; going "berserk" can sometimes interfere with the berserker's sense of reasoning and control. The "Berserker" is also a well known character archetype and status in video games and other media, who may or may not receive damage buffs while in this state.
