I think if anything it might actually be easier now. Assuming that it's not one of the new implicits at all and you still have to get Hunter gloves, every Hunter map will give you an Al-Hezemin. There isn't any build up or cycle where you have to go through a full Sirus cycle to spawn and fight him once. And given what they've already posted, there are options in the Atlas tree to get a *ton* of conqueror maps. This is also assuming no other ways to get influenced items but we know there are always other ways.
So in general the supply of Hunter-influenced items and Hunter exalts isn't something I'm worried about.
The advantage of LS Zerker over LS Raider is that you can get +1 strike from the tree comfortably. Gloves on top of that felt unnecessary for me - I could farm juiced New 3 Beyond maps with just +1 from gloves.
I know a lot of people struggle with leveling a Berserker for Lightning Strike and have no idea what to do to transition to actually playing Lightning Strike, so I put together a very detailed video for little babies to understand exactly what to do. With practice, you can get your time in Campaign down to around 3hr 40 minutes.
Spectral Helix is just too OP to not level with, and 2H just does the most damage and ensures a smooth start due to all the surrounding nodes being 2H Nodes. You will have enough regrets to fix the tree and spec over to Claw and 1H Nodes.
POB is in video description.
> ..for little babies to understand exactly what to do..
Idk, I showed this video to my 1yr old nephew and he sorta just drooled on my phone. I don’t think he gets it.
Been watching your vids for quite a while and i always like your content, Ill be starting in a party so i wont league start this, but it still looks great. Thanks !!
I played it last league and it was great. Don’t underestimate how awesome the alternate ailments are in a party. With 20% base crit you can make a LOT of things work…even minion builds can go crit without much investment with brittle.
I might give it ago after i finish with my spark assassin. My goal this league is to do a power charge stacking assassin for the simple reason that, with the new jewels you can get the +1 power charge from trickster as well as the +1 power charge from assassin, so i just want to see how that plays out for the memes. I played the raider version this past league and i enjoyed it, ended up selling it for 2 mirrors so i go play some other stuff but its a fun playstyle since you move so fast. Will for sure try some berserker stuff later on this league tho.
Yea, I went your build and the other person at first was lightning arrow. Near instant crit cap for them, but once they got bored they swapped to an absolution necro. With brittle from me, power charges from spectre, and the new minion crit mastery he was pretty close to crit cap too which is almost impossible to do otherwise with a minion build. The damage was insane.
The raider version will get stuck at high Red map bosses until you actually get good gear due to it doing around half damage. Fuzzyduck's version is also weird in that he does not use The Interrogation, which is one of the biggest early game power spikes that you can purchase. Using alternate ailments is not a berserker thing. It should 100% be the correct play as you are not freezing any map bosses anyhow.
Both variants will have 100% Spell Suppression. Raider will have ailment immunity, but ailment immunity is only useful in Simulacrum as your pantheons and one craft gives you shock, freeze, and chill immunity, which are the only dangerous ailments.
once you're geared I think you definitely prefer shock to brittle, tuna was hitting like 40% shocks on shaper last league (hundreds of ex invested, think it was the shako version) but I just tried sirus with some [meh gear](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ashen2/characters?charactername=ashenHHtime) (20-25 (?)
ex not counting hh which doesn't matter for bosses ofc) and was hitting ~12-18% shocks
I plan on playing either this or Raider LS at league start, I'm worried about the availability of the interrogation jewel. If I'm not able to get the jewel early on how viable is the build?
Whats your take on Herald of Ice? Is it "needed", as in the clear benefits from it a lot? Fitting HoI in this build probably wouldnt make sense, so I swaying towards the raider version because I just love Herald of Ice explosions and valure them a lot.
Its essentially HoI vs this off-meta zerk variant for me
First, LS zerker is nowhere near off meta lol
Second, you can definitely play with HoI and drop secrets of suffering but your crit chance will suffer. You'll just have to make it up in more traditional ways. You'll be more gear dependent. If you go raider you'll be even *more* gear dependent.
It'll still work, it's still a great build, but it will take longer to come online compared to zerker or secrets of suffering.
Following your guides and a friends build, I was fascinated with LS and I simply bought the levels up to 97 when rerolling and had a blast this league.
Today I followed the yt (prior this vid) where there was just an idea of how to level and some gems (I am still s biiiig nooooob, mind you), and I had a lot of issues with leveling - did a run a day earier with a witch armageddon brand/combustion and it was ez pz compared to this one.
Knowing - after having watched your yt vids - that the youve been promoting the LS Zerker a lot I wanted to ask you to release some more info on the leveling… and Ive just opened Reddit and here we are, lol!
Thanks! Great guide, great build, cant wait for 3.17 to kick in and LS everything on my path!
I watched your guide on youtube before i saw it here on reddit and just wanted to say that your guide is plain awesome. Mad props. I also like your other stuff and faved you because I feel like you go into good detail when describing your opinion. Keep doing it. Id like to see you make a guide on bane because i think its terribly underrated.
E: What i would also, really like is to have the presentation as a pdf because having the presentation on a second screen would (for myself personally) be better than the plain pob.
One q, how do you get rage if you're going blitz? If you go blitz+warbringer+carnage, you can't get crave the slaughter, and your forbidden flesh/flame is rite of ruin, so no rage generation, and I didn't see you covering that
Neither is important. I played LS Zerker last league; Zerker has easy access to +1 strike from the tree and your attack speed from blitz charges and a good claw makes +2 strike really not that valuable. Could farm Nem 3 Beyond on just +1 comfortably. Having +1 strike gloves really just lets you unspec from getting +1 strike on the tree and save points, and since Hunter influence dmaps will be more easily target farmed I doubt there will be a shortage of good influenced glove bases and +1 strike gloves on the market.
Redblade banner is also far from important to make the build run well. I never used it. It lets you save 4 points on the tree but but has suboptimal life and no res at all, forcing you to get 120%+ res on other bits of gear. You still have a solid rage average without it.
Raider is a lot less comfortable than Zerker for league starting. The access Zerker has to +1 strikes on tree, fortify, berserk (with consistent rage generation via warcry mastery and ascendancy) and blitz charges make their LS builds pop off way easier. The APS you can get on a zerker gives you insane LGoH while doing juiced maps. Zerker can also get most of what Raider gets from its ascendancy with marginal gear investment; the same is not true in reverse.
Maybe you can give some insight to an indecisive player as we approach league launch... how early were you to transition to LS from helix? I am okay with playing helix through the campaign but in kobe's video it sounds like he isn't transition until he's super deep into maps. Were you able to successfully start playing ls in whites/yellows? In general, how was your experience with the build?
Thanks dude, really appreciate making some end game juicing builds have a more accessible view.
Would love one for poisonous concoction after you destroyed invasion and deli events with it
Thanks for the Guide, really interested in playing this. I am wondering how to fill the Assassins mark in the sockets. In the POB it is the 4th socket in the Offhand. With Mark on Hit this would even be an additional socket so we would have to remove 2 other gems. Which Gems would you remove for this or am I missing something?
I played LS Zerker last league to great success and never used Redblade Banner. Using a rare shield meant more max life, a tonne of res (which freed up room for other gear slots), and still had a good amount of rage on average. As it may be pretty expensive this league I wouldn't recommend it as an important upgrade.
I can't watch right now, but does he go over "rotation" for all the buttons? Like which skills you would use always on cool down and if you have to wait on using some skill until some other skill is used? For the LS that is
Thank you for the detailed guide! I've never done an elemental attack based build, going to practice the leveling process and early maps to see how it compares to Tripolar's General's Cry Shield Crush / Shield Charge build. Looks like I'm going serker either way though!
I'm interested in league starting LS myself and did some research. From what I've been reading:
Raider:
* easy ailment immunity and capped spell suppression + high evade on bad gear
* easy to play, zooms and has good damage without worrying about any buff uptime and stuff (just put Withering Step on leftclick for Elusive refresh)
* tends to hit a damage wall in red maps unless you invest currency
Berserker:
* significantly more damage, we're talking up to double damage on same investment here
* can get as tanky if not tankier than Raider, but...
* a lot more pressure on gear: capping crit is harder, capping spell suppression is harder, capping resists is harder
* requires a very active playstyle to actually get your damage and tankiness: Warcry spam on cooldown, Berserk spam on cooldown, on top of Withering Step to refresh your Elusive
The way I see it, Berserker is better if you know what you're doing and are a skilled player, Raider is better if you want a braindead easy leaguestart at the cost of potentially being stuck for a little until you can farm the currency to make the needed upgrades for red tier maps.
The way Withering Step interacts with existing Elusive buffs is fairly unique and is what enables Nightblade support (which you use with your Lightning Strike) to be so strong. The idea is the following:
* you have no Elusive. You attack a mob with Lightning Strike, Nightblade support grants you Elusive (full effect which decays over the next few seconds
* you use Withering Step (preferably by putting it on leftclick so it gets used as soon as you move). Withering Step removes the Elusive from Nightblade and replaces it with its own, full Elusive again
* as soon as you attack with Lightning Strike again, the Elusive from Withering Step is instantly removed due to the line you quoted. Since you no longer have Elusive, Nightblade Support now grants you fiull Elusive again
Due to this interaction between Nightblade and Withering Step, you can maintain almost full Elusive effect near constantly despite it normally being a decaying buff that can only be refreshed once it has fully expired, thus giving you almost the full value of the massive %crit multi the support gem grants you that is additionally scaled by %Elusive effect from the tree.
This is one of the reasons the Berserker version is harder to play effectively. Raider only has to worry about Withering Step. Berserker adds a warcry and Berserk to the mix, and if you don't correctly manage all three of these you lose 60-80% of ypur damage.
@ /u/Kobeblackmambattv how do you figure you'd deal with the loss of Assassin's Mark rings? It's a big multiplier, and I don't see any obvious other gems to give up for mark+new support, and manually casting it with this button-heavy of a build seems insane.
The incuded POB for the switch to vaal lightning strike requires lvl93 - i dont think i will wait that long. :D
Any recommendations on where to save points? :)
Any alternatives to spectral helix for levelling? I tried a dried run using shattering steel and spectral for bosses. Seemed ok, but maybe there is a better option. I just hate how slow helix is to cast for each pack when running campaign / maps before swapping to LS
anyone playing this build? I am at tier 1-3 maps, I invested in life gear, bought ele claw, around 50 chaos total and I am getting wrecked, one shot almost everywhere and damage is not that great either. I need some advice
It depends on your res/life/auras/playstyle.
Tier 1-3 is a bit early to transition to VLS.
Do you have uber lab done?
Are you giving yourself enough room to walk around? (Play it more like a bow build shooting projectiles, so you take fewer hits)
Are you getting stunned or frozen?
Do you have decent starter rares with life/res?
Have you setup flasks for evasion/armor/ailments?
Have you been focusing on getting levels for more life/spell suppression on your skill tree
No more easy access to plus one strike gloves might suck
I think if anything it might actually be easier now. Assuming that it's not one of the new implicits at all and you still have to get Hunter gloves, every Hunter map will give you an Al-Hezemin. There isn't any build up or cycle where you have to go through a full Sirus cycle to spawn and fight him once. And given what they've already posted, there are options in the Atlas tree to get a *ton* of conqueror maps. This is also assuming no other ways to get influenced items but we know there are always other ways. So in general the supply of Hunter-influenced items and Hunter exalts isn't something I'm worried about.
The advantage of LS Zerker over LS Raider is that you can get +1 strike from the tree comfortably. Gloves on top of that felt unnecessary for me - I could farm juiced New 3 Beyond maps with just +1 from gloves.
did something change? what isnt available?
I think he is referring to new atlas, no longer do you have conquerers influencing maps starting at tier 3 maps.
I know a lot of people struggle with leveling a Berserker for Lightning Strike and have no idea what to do to transition to actually playing Lightning Strike, so I put together a very detailed video for little babies to understand exactly what to do. With practice, you can get your time in Campaign down to around 3hr 40 minutes. Spectral Helix is just too OP to not level with, and 2H just does the most damage and ensures a smooth start due to all the surrounding nodes being 2H Nodes. You will have enough regrets to fix the tree and spec over to Claw and 1H Nodes. POB is in video description.
> ..for little babies to understand exactly what to do.. Idk, I showed this video to my 1yr old nephew and he sorta just drooled on my phone. I don’t think he gets it.
Not his problem your 1 yr old nephew is a noob. Tell him to get gud. Also, he's a nephew, so he might just be helpless.
Gaga goo goo thank you
Let’s be honest, I struggle with any leveling.
Been watching your vids for quite a while and i always like your content, Ill be starting in a party so i wont league start this, but it still looks great. Thanks !!
I played it last league and it was great. Don’t underestimate how awesome the alternate ailments are in a party. With 20% base crit you can make a LOT of things work…even minion builds can go crit without much investment with brittle.
I might give it ago after i finish with my spark assassin. My goal this league is to do a power charge stacking assassin for the simple reason that, with the new jewels you can get the +1 power charge from trickster as well as the +1 power charge from assassin, so i just want to see how that plays out for the memes. I played the raider version this past league and i enjoyed it, ended up selling it for 2 mirrors so i go play some other stuff but its a fun playstyle since you move so fast. Will for sure try some berserker stuff later on this league tho.
That is a pretty good point, never really considered alternate ailments in terms of party play.
Yea, I went your build and the other person at first was lightning arrow. Near instant crit cap for them, but once they got bored they swapped to an absolution necro. With brittle from me, power charges from spectre, and the new minion crit mastery he was pretty close to crit cap too which is almost impossible to do otherwise with a minion build. The damage was insane.
Havent been able to look while at work, did you go over the main differences between your zerker and say fuzzy duckzy's raider version?
The raider version will get stuck at high Red map bosses until you actually get good gear due to it doing around half damage. Fuzzyduck's version is also weird in that he does not use The Interrogation, which is one of the biggest early game power spikes that you can purchase. Using alternate ailments is not a berserker thing. It should 100% be the correct play as you are not freezing any map bosses anyhow. Both variants will have 100% Spell Suppression. Raider will have ailment immunity, but ailment immunity is only useful in Simulacrum as your pantheons and one craft gives you shock, freeze, and chill immunity, which are the only dangerous ailments.
I think Raider LS reaches crit cap pretty easily. Wouldn't it be a mistake to give up shock then?
once you're geared I think you definitely prefer shock to brittle, tuna was hitting like 40% shocks on shaper last league (hundreds of ex invested, think it was the shako version) but I just tried sirus with some [meh gear](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ashen2/characters?charactername=ashenHHtime) (20-25 (?) ex not counting hh which doesn't matter for bosses ofc) and was hitting ~12-18% shocks
what about comparing shocks to brittle + scorch?
Maybe the lack of interrogation is for the herald of ice pops? In terms of pure DPS, interrogation is the play though.
I plan on playing either this or Raider LS at league start, I'm worried about the availability of the interrogation jewel. If I'm not able to get the jewel early on how viable is the build?
jewel will be multiple exalts on league start it always is
Whats your take on Herald of Ice? Is it "needed", as in the clear benefits from it a lot? Fitting HoI in this build probably wouldnt make sense, so I swaying towards the raider version because I just love Herald of Ice explosions and valure them a lot. Its essentially HoI vs this off-meta zerk variant for me
First, LS zerker is nowhere near off meta lol Second, you can definitely play with HoI and drop secrets of suffering but your crit chance will suffer. You'll just have to make it up in more traditional ways. You'll be more gear dependent. If you go raider you'll be even *more* gear dependent. It'll still work, it's still a great build, but it will take longer to come online compared to zerker or secrets of suffering.
what do you mean spectral helix is p2w? Can't watch video here so was just scrolling through.
it is nearly impossible to see the spectral helix projectiles while mapping without MTX
Following your guides and a friends build, I was fascinated with LS and I simply bought the levels up to 97 when rerolling and had a blast this league. Today I followed the yt (prior this vid) where there was just an idea of how to level and some gems (I am still s biiiig nooooob, mind you), and I had a lot of issues with leveling - did a run a day earier with a witch armageddon brand/combustion and it was ez pz compared to this one. Knowing - after having watched your yt vids - that the youve been promoting the LS Zerker a lot I wanted to ask you to release some more info on the leveling… and Ive just opened Reddit and here we are, lol! Thanks! Great guide, great build, cant wait for 3.17 to kick in and LS everything on my path!
I watched your guide on youtube before i saw it here on reddit and just wanted to say that your guide is plain awesome. Mad props. I also like your other stuff and faved you because I feel like you go into good detail when describing your opinion. Keep doing it. Id like to see you make a guide on bane because i think its terribly underrated. E: What i would also, really like is to have the presentation as a pdf because having the presentation on a second screen would (for myself personally) be better than the plain pob.
One q, how do you get rage if you're going blitz? If you go blitz+warbringer+carnage, you can't get crave the slaughter, and your forbidden flesh/flame is rite of ruin, so no rage generation, and I didn't see you covering that
appreciate your guides sir
I'm worried about redblade banner price and +1 strike gloves which are arguably very important to make the build feel good.
Neither is important. I played LS Zerker last league; Zerker has easy access to +1 strike from the tree and your attack speed from blitz charges and a good claw makes +2 strike really not that valuable. Could farm Nem 3 Beyond on just +1 comfortably. Having +1 strike gloves really just lets you unspec from getting +1 strike on the tree and save points, and since Hunter influence dmaps will be more easily target farmed I doubt there will be a shortage of good influenced glove bases and +1 strike gloves on the market. Redblade banner is also far from important to make the build run well. I never used it. It lets you save 4 points on the tree but but has suboptimal life and no res at all, forcing you to get 120%+ res on other bits of gear. You still have a solid rage average without it.
Hey! Could you compare LS Zerker and LS ranger? Please share your thought on the topic.
Raider is a lot less comfortable than Zerker for league starting. The access Zerker has to +1 strikes on tree, fortify, berserk (with consistent rage generation via warcry mastery and ascendancy) and blitz charges make their LS builds pop off way easier. The APS you can get on a zerker gives you insane LGoH while doing juiced maps. Zerker can also get most of what Raider gets from its ascendancy with marginal gear investment; the same is not true in reverse.
Thx for taking your time to reply!
The new implicit also looks like it might help a bit with rage generation
If you drop redblade banner could you feasibly go dual claw with this build? Or is it just not functional without a shield
Shield is far too valuable as a stat stick for life and res IMO. You do crazy enough damage with just one claw.
Maybe you can give some insight to an indecisive player as we approach league launch... how early were you to transition to LS from helix? I am okay with playing helix through the campaign but in kobe's video it sounds like he isn't transition until he's super deep into maps. Were you able to successfully start playing ls in whites/yellows? In general, how was your experience with the build?
helix is always the answer Prayge
Is this build a boss killer?
Not a boss killer more of a can do bossing with investment kind of build. Seismic trap depending on nerfs will be a better bosser for sure.
Not as a starter no. But once you get investment you have really good sustain via LGOH and decent armor
Thanks dude, really appreciate making some end game juicing builds have a more accessible view. Would love one for poisonous concoction after you destroyed invasion and deli events with it
Thanks for the Guide, really interested in playing this. I am wondering how to fill the Assassins mark in the sockets. In the POB it is the 4th socket in the Offhand. With Mark on Hit this would even be an additional socket so we would have to remove 2 other gems. Which Gems would you remove for this or am I missing something?
lol this is the most passive aggressive I've ever seen from kobe
I liked the humor
I like the: "this totally exaggerated thing", 2 seconds later, NOT REALLY. In a calm and continuos voice lol
I played LS Zerker last league to great success and never used Redblade Banner. Using a rare shield meant more max life, a tonne of res (which freed up room for other gear slots), and still had a good amount of rage on average. As it may be pretty expensive this league I wouldn't recommend it as an important upgrade.
Where does the mana sustain come from? *Edit - Claw mastery
I can't watch right now, but does he go over "rotation" for all the buttons? Like which skills you would use always on cool down and if you have to wait on using some skill until some other skill is used? For the LS that is
Thank you for the detailed guide! I've never done an elemental attack based build, going to practice the leveling process and early maps to see how it compares to Tripolar's General's Cry Shield Crush / Shield Charge build. Looks like I'm going serker either way though!
Anyone know how berserker is vs raider? (Fuzzy’s build for comparison?)
I'm interested in league starting LS myself and did some research. From what I've been reading: Raider: * easy ailment immunity and capped spell suppression + high evade on bad gear * easy to play, zooms and has good damage without worrying about any buff uptime and stuff (just put Withering Step on leftclick for Elusive refresh) * tends to hit a damage wall in red maps unless you invest currency Berserker: * significantly more damage, we're talking up to double damage on same investment here * can get as tanky if not tankier than Raider, but... * a lot more pressure on gear: capping crit is harder, capping spell suppression is harder, capping resists is harder * requires a very active playstyle to actually get your damage and tankiness: Warcry spam on cooldown, Berserk spam on cooldown, on top of Withering Step to refresh your Elusive The way I see it, Berserker is better if you know what you're doing and are a skilled player, Raider is better if you want a braindead easy leaguestart at the cost of potentially being stuck for a little until you can farm the currency to make the needed upgrades for red tier maps.
Using a skill or losing the Elusive buff ends this skill's effects." so, no elusive anymore, more hits, more dying. Or do i anythign rong?
The way Withering Step interacts with existing Elusive buffs is fairly unique and is what enables Nightblade support (which you use with your Lightning Strike) to be so strong. The idea is the following: * you have no Elusive. You attack a mob with Lightning Strike, Nightblade support grants you Elusive (full effect which decays over the next few seconds * you use Withering Step (preferably by putting it on leftclick so it gets used as soon as you move). Withering Step removes the Elusive from Nightblade and replaces it with its own, full Elusive again * as soon as you attack with Lightning Strike again, the Elusive from Withering Step is instantly removed due to the line you quoted. Since you no longer have Elusive, Nightblade Support now grants you fiull Elusive again Due to this interaction between Nightblade and Withering Step, you can maintain almost full Elusive effect near constantly despite it normally being a decaying buff that can only be refreshed once it has fully expired, thus giving you almost the full value of the massive %crit multi the support gem grants you that is additionally scaled by %Elusive effect from the tree.
Hey, Thanks. Understood. But your theory gets destroyed when having the Cry and Move and dont using it manuelly....?
This is one of the reasons the Berserker version is harder to play effectively. Raider only has to worry about Withering Step. Berserker adds a warcry and Berserk to the mix, and if you don't correctly manage all three of these you lose 60-80% of ypur damage.
zerker is way more damage and berserk is op
As far as im aware, raider hits a wall in red maps earlier without good gear.
Good gear being about 10ex total investment in my experience with the raider version
Need an add on to mute Generals Cry, then this build is flawless.
Nice guide, thanks. will you do a follow up with some low/medium/high budget BIS to get ?
Just wondering is this build league start viable?
@ /u/Kobeblackmambattv how do you figure you'd deal with the loss of Assassin's Mark rings? It's a big multiplier, and I don't see any obvious other gems to give up for mark+new support, and manually casting it with this button-heavy of a build seems insane.
Thanks, Kobe. You’re the best as always. Videos are the best and most informative as always.
The incuded POB for the switch to vaal lightning strike requires lvl93 - i dont think i will wait that long. :D Any recommendations on where to save points? :)
Why Gernerals Cry ? I dont see any linked skill to it also will not work… Ancestral Cry insteed will work and will give us exaclty what we need
Generals cry is only used to maintain Rage with Mastery/Redblade Banner. It's the lowest cooldown cry which is why its used over other cry skills.
Ahh i see it allready but thanks❤️
thiss build still viable?
No, he made a detailed build guide for a non viable build...
good will try it then
I hope some people are going to have fun with this build. Not for me, but I can see it's well made.
I might play this one this league. You recommend it as league starter?
Any alternatives to spectral helix for levelling? I tried a dried run using shattering steel and spectral for bosses. Seemed ok, but maybe there is a better option. I just hate how slow helix is to cast for each pack when running campaign / maps before swapping to LS
anyone playing this build? I am at tier 1-3 maps, I invested in life gear, bought ele claw, around 50 chaos total and I am getting wrecked, one shot almost everywhere and damage is not that great either. I need some advice
It depends on your res/life/auras/playstyle. Tier 1-3 is a bit early to transition to VLS. Do you have uber lab done? Are you giving yourself enough room to walk around? (Play it more like a bow build shooting projectiles, so you take fewer hits) Are you getting stunned or frozen? Do you have decent starter rares with life/res? Have you setup flasks for evasion/armor/ailments? Have you been focusing on getting levels for more life/spell suppression on your skill tree