Ultimate DPS Cyclone Block Berserker Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Powers
Ascendancy (Marauder – Berserker)
Aspect of Carnage
While I think Aspect of Carnage is a pretty big bait in the late game, in case you’re playing this as a League Starter or in an environment where you’re going to want to delay the 4th Labyrinth for a pretty big chunk of time, I would not mind it if you specced into this early on (in the first Lab) just because it carries SO hard damage-wise. However, once you start pushing into the Yellow and Red Tier maps, this needs to be unspecced. It is just so hard to overcome the downside without dying occasionally. If you don’t mind dying occasionally, because you’re playing Softcore and you’re still low level so it doesn’t really lose you much, you can hold on to it until you complete the last Labyrinth.
The reason why I personally always go Aspect of Carnage into Crave the Slaughter & Rite of Ruin is because between Merciless and Uber Labyrinth you’d get Flawless Savagery which really isn’t that great. The Blitz Charges is where its at! So once you can allocate both Flawless Savagery and Blitz, you’d unspec Aspect of Carnage.
Crave the Slaughter
This is what makes you use Berserk, which is almost half of your Damage. That in itself would have already been kind of nutty but by its lonesome Crave the Slaughter is a fairly insane node. Rage is really strong mechanic as it basically gives you 50% Increased Attack Damage, 25% Increased Attack Speed and 10% Movement Speed. Pretty sick for a single Ascendancy!
Rite of Ruin
Remember of how I said that Crave the Slaughter was kind of nutty on its own? What about we triple that effect real quick by picking up Rite of Ruin. I mean, this is insane. You’re getting 100% Increased Damage, 50% Increased Attack Speed and 20% Movement Speed at the cost of a little bit of Degen which you easily counter with Leech & Consecrated Ground. Rite of Ruin is probably the best damage Ascendancy in the game.
Flawless Savagery
This is the weakest out of the Ascendancies you’re picking up. Again, that is why usually until you do Uber Lab (or at least if there is a significant enough gap between Merciless and Uber Lab) you’d pick up Aspect of the Carnage as first so you’d end up with Rite of Ruin, Crave the Slaughter and Aspect of Carnage after your 3rd Lab. This node is pretty much only there to travel you to Blitz. However, it’s actually not even bad. It’s just that the others are so good. This node gives you about 10% DPS through Crit Multi and a big amount of Physical Damage to Attacks. It’s also a lot better early on when you don’t have good gear for sure.
Blitz
Blitz is one of my favorite things in the game. Blitz charges make every single skill you’re playing as a Berserker feel insanely fun. Cyclone is one of the worst examples as it is already enjoyable at lower levels of attack speed but some other skills really become something different when you give them 40% MORE Attack Speed. For our build, this is about a 30% more DPS which is really solid!
Bandits
There really only is one option here. You want to help Eramir for Skill Points. Sure, getting some Resistances and Mana Regeneration from Alira isn’t terrible as a league starter but capping resistances really isn’t an issue on this build! Eramir just offers so much flexibility that it almost always is better than the others!
Pantheons
Major Gods
Soul of Lunaris is probably your best pick. No one has ever said no to some extra Physical Damage Reduction!
Minor Gods
I would recommend Soul of Shakari here as Chaos damage over time can be fairly lethal. The other options don’t really offer us much.
Upgrading your Pantheons
Whilst upgrading your Pantheons never hurts you, it’s not that important for this character. If you have nothing else to do at some point, sure, why not, but it shouldn’t be something you focus on or spend a lot of time on.
Pantheon powers can be upgraded by using Divine Vessel in the Map Device while you are activating the particular Map that contains the boss you need. Once you’ve killed the boss and captured his soul, you need to deliver the Divine Vessel, which’ll be filled up in the map device, to Sin in Oriath.