Banners are immovable objects that only the caster can interact with. Assuming perfect Alacrity, you will have four seconds of downtime with your banners.
If you pick up your banners, they will Recharge by 60 seconds. This means that once your banners are on a 60 seconds
Recharge, you can pick them up and recast them instantly. Take advantage of this during downtime between phases or when bosses are
Invulnerable. This will ensure permanent uptime.
Make sure you place your banners close to your stack or between two locations if you know you will move slightly.
There are five types of banners:
In the Discipline trait line, you have a trait called . This trait will increase the effect of banners on you by 100%.
is a specific mechanic that is unique to Berserker. It has a one second cast time to enter and will last for 15 seconds, unless extended. There is no way to manually exit , you have to wait out the timer.
When in , you can access to new burst skills:
can be extended by using rage skills. Each skill extends the duration by a different amount. You can also extend the duration of by using the trait in the Berserker Trait Line.
Let's take a look at your rage skills and see how long they extend by:
Adrenaline is a specific mechanic that is unique to Warrior,
Berserker and
Spellbreaker. You gain adrenaline whenever you strike with an attack.
You gain adrenaline in order to use and your primal burst skills. There are three stages of adrenaline, each requiring 10 adrenaline. You are required to fill up all 30 points of adrenaline in order to enter . After that point, each primal burst skill will cost 10 points of adrenaline. Using a burst skill will use all of your adrenaline, even if the skill misses.
So which primal burst skills will you encounter in this build?
Primal burst skills have a few traits that change their behaviour:
You have a few skills that grant adrenaline:
You have a few traits that grant you additional adrenaline:
Power Banner Berserker pulls ahead of its condition counterpart at bosses with short phases and with frequent
Breakbars.
Power Banner Berserker has both reasonable burst and sustained DPS numbers, as well as a flexible rotation focused around spamming and under in .
By far, the largest portion of your damage comes from . Always try to use this while under the effects of and , if you have a Mace / Mace set.
On your Mace set you have . This will trigger whenever you use a skill that interrupts an enemy. The buff lasts for four seconds and can be triggered every three seconds.
There are a few important things to consider when playing Power Banner Berserker:
Your Heal skill will always be as your rotation partly revolves around this skill. Using will Recharge your .
is taken for the passive + 180 Power. You never need to use the active version of this skill.
and will always be on your utility bar when playing Power Banner Berserker. These two utilities will buff all 10 squad members and have an almost permanent uptime. Your banners last for 60 seconds and will have a
Recharge of 64 seconds, assuming permanent
Alacrity.
can be used as a Stun Break, grants you maximum adrenaline and causes 300
Breakbar damage.
If your squad is seriously struggling with CC and I mean seriously struggling, then you can consider swapping for .
You will need to decide between and , depending on the needs of your group.
Take for the clutch resurrect and the Fury it provides to your subgroup. Sometimes you will need to provide
Fury due to your squad composition or there are some encounters, like
Deimos, where you can pre-stack adrenaline.
The damage from this build comes from the buildup of .
grants you a flat 5% damage modifier.
causes you to gain + 120 Power and an additional + 120
Power if you have a Greatsword equipped.
increases the effects of Might. Normally, you gain + 30
Power per stack of
Might but with you will gain + 40
Power per stack of
Might.
is gained for each bar of adrenaline spent when you use , or . The maximum is three stacks and you can gain the maximum stacks when you use . Your primal burst skills will grant one stack of . gives you a 7% damage increase per stack.
increases your damage by 7% while under the effects of Swiftness.
is what enables this build to provide such high CC without taking a hit to personal DPS. This trait reduces your Weapon Swap
Recharge time down to five seconds. This means swapping out to your Mace set doesn't punish you.
improves the effects of your banners but only on yourself. You will gain 100% more stats from your banners and will gain Swiftness when you summon them.
causes you to gain a flat + 120 Ferocity and then an additional + 120
Ferocity per Axe. It also causes all of your Axe skills to have reduced
Recharge and to grant adrenaline when you critically hit.
increases the duration of your by five seconds.
grants you Ferocity based on 7% of your
Precision. This bonus is doubled to 14% when you are in .
increases your Power and
Condition Damage by + 300 stat points when you are in . It also decreases your
Toughness by 300 stat points.
increases your damage by 20% whilst in . This is why you sometimes delay until you are in .
There will be situations where taking the Tactics trait line will be of higher value than
Strength. This rotation is very tight and
Alacrity dependant. This is due to the trait that can be missed if you have low
Alacrity.
Tactics provides your subgroup with an additional + 100
Power due to . This, clearly, shows that
Tactics should be taken when you are in power based subgroups.
Tactics also provides you with . This trait grants you a 1% damage increase per boon that you have which makes this even more valuable, as a trait line, on encounters with
Detonate Plasma.
When you find yourself in a situation that favours Tactics, your traits should look like this:
Let's look at some breakpoints for where different runes might become more useful.
Breakpoints for when you have :
75% Thief Uptime | 80% Thief Uptime | 85% Thief Uptime | 90% Thief Uptime | 95% Thief Uptime | 100% Thief Uptime | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Eagle Uptime | 38% | 43% | 48% | 53% | 58% | 63% |
Scholar Uptime | 73% | 83% | 93% | 102% | 112% | 122% |
Breakpoints for when you don't have :
75% Thief Uptime | 80% Thief Uptime | 85% Thief Uptime | 90% Thief Uptime | 95% Thief Uptime | 100% Thief Uptime | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Eagle Uptime | 37% | 41% | 46% | 51% | 56% | 61% |
Scholar Uptime | 73% | 83% | 92% | 102% | 112% | 121% |
So, what does this all mean? The following guidelines apply only to non-spotter subgroups:
When playing with with you will need the following gear:
When playing with without you will just need to take .
When playing with with you will need the following gear:
When playing with without you will need the following gear:
If you need CC then you will want to run Mace / Mace on your second weapon set.
If you don't have a Druid in your subgroup and therefore don't have access to you will want to use instead of .
If you are tryharding on Slothasor, don't have and want to run you will need to change your gear to have access to more
Precision. This will mean you need to take the following Assassin's trinkets:
You provide roughly 20% Cripple uptime through alone.
You can provide Vulnerability through .
You can provide Fury,
Might and
Swiftness through to your subgroup.
You can provide yourself with Swiftness whenever you cast banners due to .
You give yourself Fury and
Quickness through and respectively.
You give yourself Might from , and .
In organised groups, it's very effective to use Power Banner Berserker at
Vale Guardian instead of
Condition Banner Berserker. You provide extremely high burst DPS that can be used on both
Vale Guardian and during the split phase.
All of your skills are mobile which means that you can easily move out of when required. has an extremely long range, for a melee skill, so take advantage of this when spawns.
In fast groups, your should expire just as you phase Vale Guardian. If your squad DPS is lower, or you're in a pug group, you can use again and take advantage of this extra DPS to help you speed up the split phase.
Place your banners somewhere slightly towards the East side of Vale Guardian, assuming you're tanking in the middle. This allows you to easily pick them up before the split phase.
If you're tanking on the wall, place your banners slightly North of Vale Guardian. Basically, it doesn't matter where you tank
Vale Guardian, just put your banners so it's easy for you to pick them up as you jog off to
Blue Guardian for the split.
You have time, even in fast groups, to recast your banners during the split phase.
You will go to the Blue Guardian during the split phase.
In fast groups, it is unwise to use during the split phase. In slower groups, you may have time for it to come back off Cooldown or may still be lingering from the main phase. Either way, don't skill save on your weapon skills. Even will be back off
Cooldown by the time you return to
Vale Guardian.
If you need it, you can run Mace in your off hand slot. This will let you provide some CC with but it won't interrupt your rotation as you can still Weapon Swap to trigger during your
Cooldown.
Power Banner Berserker is extremely strong at this encounter due to its high burst on main phases and split phases. It also provides a decent amount of CC with your off hand Mace sets. If, however, you are in a slower group and require someone to look after the orbs then you might be required to swap to
Condition Banner Berserker.
Cleaving adds will mean more spam because you hit multiple enemies and therefore stack adrenaline faster.
During the third DPS phase, or "Eggs" will spawn around Gorseval. Try to avoid
Dodging out of the "Eggs" in order to upkeep DPS, because you can simply walk backwards out of them as they spawn. Luckily, all your skills are mobile so you can simply walk away.
Your banner placement will depend slightly on the way your squad does the split phase. Organised groups will either split their squad in half or into four groups.
If you split into two groups then you should place your banners to the West of Gorseval. This is because both groups will end their split phase there.
If you are splitting four ways, your split phase will be too fast to worry about casting banners. Simply pick up your banners at the end of each main phase and cast them again at the start of the next phase.
If you are running around as a squad to kill all the Charged Souls then you can place your banners slightly behind
Gorseval. This will ensure you will be in range of your banners for at least two
Charged Souls.
You can pick up your banners just as the split phase ends and recast them. This will ensure a high uptime.
You don't need to skill save during the split phase. You can freely use everything, as it will be off Cooldown by the time you return to
Gorseval.
Remember to always flank during the split phase to keep up the damage modifiers from .
You will need to take care during the Breakbar Phase as a lot of your skills hit multiple times. This can easily destroy you if your CC isn't fast enough.
Swap to your Mace / Mace set as fast as possible so you can dish out all the CC and then quickly get back to your Axe / Axe set.
Use if you must but remember that you will get Stunned.
Power Banner Berserker and
Condition Banner Berserker are extremely close, in terms of DPS, for this encounter.
Power Banner Berserker provides more burst DPS on
Sabetha and provides faster phases for the champion adds.
Condition Banner Berserker provides better cleave for add control and to cleave down
Karde's turrets. Play whichever build you prefer.
If you choose to play Power Banner Berserker, you should run with as your flanking uptime will be low on
Sabetha.
Cleaving adds will mean more spam because you hit multiple enemies and therefore stack adrenaline faster.
As you have no ranged DPS capabilities, do not bait the mechanic.
Ideally, you should also not be taking a cannon as you have no conditions to leave ticking on the cannon. You also have no movement skills which makes getting to and from the cannon very slow.
Place your banners close to the center of the arena. Pick them up and replace them between the time that Sabetha goes
Invulnerable and
Kernan,
Knuckles, and
Karde spawn. When the phases are long enough that the banners will disappear before phase, recast them between phases.
Make sure you use early enough so you can start your rotation quickly. You should be able to get in five, or maybe six, uses of before Slothasor uses .
For the rest of the encounter you need to decide when to use . If Slothasor has a few percent left before he phases, then it might be better to save so you definitely have it off
Cooldown to use with the modifier from .
Slothasor will
Fear your squad after each
Breakbar. If you have trust issues you can delay your swap back to Axe - Axe and use to block the
Fear.
Cleaving adds will mean more spam because you hit multiple enemies and therefore stack adrenaline faster.
If you get Fixated at
Slothasor, it will mean that your flanking uptime will be low for this period. Try to save your and until
Slothasor uses . This will give you time to get behind
Slothasor and gain the benefits of .
Remember to pick up your banners as you move through the arena. This will allow you to have permanent uptime on your banners.
The sole purpose of running Power Banner Berserker here is to provide a lot of
Breakbar damage and burst damage between
Breakbars.
Beware of using as it strips Stability. Most groups will run with a
Stability source to negate the
Fear after each
Breakbar Phase. Either use immediately, don't use it at all or use your Mace to block the fear with .
Depending on how fast your CC is, you may be able to trigger twice per Breakbar. It has a
Cooldown of three seconds and lasts for a total of four seconds.
Begin your CC by using , follow up with and .
Make sure that you swap early enough to Mace / Mace to avoid being stuck on that weapon set when the Breakbar Phase ends.
There are two weapon options you can play as Power Banner Berserker on
Keep Construct.
If you run Axe / Axe - Mace / Mace then you should camp Axe / Axe until Keep Construct's
Breakbar appears. As soon as
Keep Construct's
Breakbar appears, swap to Mace / Mace and use , and to help with CC.
Since you can move during nearly all your skills, you should always try to hit both illusions at the same time when they are trying to merge.
Cleaving adds will mean more spam because you hit multiple enemies and therefore stack adrenaline faster.
Regardless of whether you kill Keep Construct on the wall or in the middle, he will always go back to the middle of the arena for the burn phase.
So, guess where your banners have to be? Put them somewhere between the middle of the arena and the side where you kill the adds, assuming you move Keep Construct.
After the Breakbar Phase you can pick up your banners. Recast them just before the orb goes through the final rift.
After the burn phase you can pick them up again. This will ensure that they will be ready again for the next phase.
For the pre-event islands, you may need to take a button on the second island. If this is the case, you can take Rifle instead of Mace / Mace. This provides the ultimate roleplay experience.
As you can pre-stack adrenaline on the pre-event, you do not require . This allows you to take which can be used to provide boons, Fury and
Might, or it can be saved for a clutch resurrect.
Xera gains a flat 80% damage reduction during the
Breakbar, swap immediately to Mace / Mace and break her as quickly as possible.
Cleaving adds will mean more spam because you hit multiple enemies and therefore stack adrenaline faster.
Whenever you move Xera to the side of the platform, you can easily cleave her and a shard at the same time. Just move slightly to the side of
Xera (don't worry, you'll still be flanking) and cleave the shard.
Find out from the Power Boon Chronomancer if you are keeping
Xera in the middle during the first phase. If you are, then you can just place your banners there. If you are moving
Xera try to place your banners between the middle and the location to which you will move her.
The same applies to the second phase, after 50%. Find out where you will be moving Xera and place your banners between the two tanking positions.
During the second phase, you can pick them up as you move between tanking spots and recast them.
This is basically just a golem rotation. Make sure you out-DPS some of the DPS classes, it's very important.
Play with the Tactics trait line if you have a
Boon Thief or
Boon Daredevil.
Power Banner Warrior is a good person to bait the
Fixation for every
Breakbar Phase in organised runs. If you are doing this, you should run with Axe / Axe only and with . If you are not baiting
Fixation, you should run with Axe / Axe and Mace / Mace with .
Use as early as possible. Samarog will use as his first skill and you don't want to be stuck in an animation when that happens.
If you have really high group DPS you may find that your is not off Cooldown for every
Breakbar. In this scenario, it might be more beneficial to run Shield offhand instead of Mace. has a lower
Cooldown and will be ready for every
Breakbar.
Most of your skills are mobile meaning that you can jump while using them. You can freely jump while using to get over the without having to interrupt your skills.
Samarog should be fairly static during the first phase until 66%. Just place your banners behind
Samarog towards the spears.
Pick up your banners as Samarog phases at 66% and 33% and recast them for the split phase.
Pick up your banners towards the end of each split phase and recast them.
There is no need to skill save during the split phase as all of your skills will be back off Cooldown.
Your will also be off Cooldown by the time the split phase ends. Use during the split phase, a fast split means less time away from
Samarog.
The following text assumes that you are not baiting Fixation.
The sole purpose of running Power Banner Berserker here is to provide a lot of
Breakbar damage and burst damage between
Breakbars.
Depending on how fast your CC is, you may be able to trigger twice per Breakbar. It has a
Cooldown of three seconds and lasts for a total of four seconds.
Begin your CC by using , follow up with and .
Make sure that you swap early enough to Mace / Mace to avoid being stuck on that weapon set when the Breakbar Phase ends.
Power Banner Berserker has extremely high burst on this fight for both
Deimos and for the split phases. You can also pre-stack adrenaline whilst killing the chains which means you can afford to take over .
has 300 range, this will reach Deimos even if he is standing in the middle of a .
Cleaving adds will mean more spam because you hit multiple enemies and therefore stack adrenaline faster.
Place your banners near the center of the Arena as Deimos barely moves.
Make sure you pick up your banners as you phase Deimos at 10% health. Recast them immediately when you get down to the last phase.
There is no reason to skill save during the split phases, so just keep up your rotation as normal. The faster you phase Saul, the faster you are back at Deimos.
If you're in a fast group, you can use during the split phase as it will only take a few seconds to burst Saul down. If you're in a slower group, don't waste as you'll return to Deimos without it back off
Cooldown.
Remember to cleave both Saul and Deimos when possible.
You can use into Conjured Amalgamate to maximize the amount of hits as the edge of the platform acts as a wall. You can also use Greatsword to help with movement, assuming you need to collect some Swords.
Using Greatsword also allows you to use whilst collecting.
Don't waste your until there are some Sword debuffs on Conjured Amalgamate.
Take care when the Shields spawn as you can easily kill yourself with or spam.
Place your banners in the middle of the arena to maximise coverage.
You can drop your banners at the start, pick them up just before the burn phase and recast them. This will ensure they will be up for the entirety of the burn phase. Do the same for the proceeding burn phases.
Take care when you use as it will put you very close to your target. All the enemies at the Qadim encounter have proximity based aggro mechanics and your close proximity may cause aggro issues. This is important when you kickstart your rotation at the
Hydra.
Remember that you can't do any damage to Qadim when his
Breakbar is up. The faster you break him the faster you can go back to DPS.
Try to cleave all the three adds that spawn at the Destroyer. You can freely move while using any of your Axe skills to help you reposition yourself.
Cleaving adds will mean more spam because you hit multiple enemies and therefore stack adrenaline faster.
You will need to kite one of the Wyverns as
Power Banner Berserker. Most attacks can be sidestepped or avoided by moving inside the
Wyvern's hitbox.
Kiting a Wyvern is easy if you know their attack pattern.
2 x or Breakbar Phase .
If you are kiting the Matriarch you need to make sure that she is not facing the
Patriarch when she uses .
You can simply move out of the way when a Wyvern uses . The same applies for and .
is actually two attacks. It looks like a swipe and then a stab into the ground.
You will need to block or Dodge the first but you can simply walk inside the hitbox of the
Wyvern to avoid the second hit of .
After the Wyvern uses to escape they may use . They will only use this skill if no one is close to them when they move. You will absolutely need to
Dodge this skill if they use it.
Cast your banners just before the Hydra spawns. You can pick them up and recast them if the
Hydra teleports. You can then pick them up again as the
Hydra dies.
Recast your banners as you get back to Qadim after you've dealt with the Pyres. Always pick them up again at the end of each phase. Repeat this for the following phases.
If you have fast phases, you can use your banners before you deal with the Pyres. Cast them just in front of Qadim.
Make sure to place your banners next to the Patriarch before going to
Matriarch to ensure a faster burn and therefore phase transition. You will generally have time to set your banners down again during the
Matriarch burn and pick them up before arriving at
Qadim one last time.
Don't use your banners once you've killed the Matriarch and
Patriarch. Wait until you have finished the jumping puzzle and have arrived at
Qadim.
Power Banner Berserker is strong here, not only for the CC it provides, but also for the burst damage it can provide if you are required to kill adds during the final phase.
Flanking uptime can prove difficult at this encounter, so it is best to use here.
Do your normal opener and you should be able to fit in a second before Sabir going into the first
Breakbar Phase at 90%.
You will need to take the Tornados to avoid the one-shot attack at Sabir.
Don't waste any skills that don't provide Breakbar damage during the
Breakbar Phases.
Banner placement is extremely simple here. Place them at the start of each phase and pick them up at the end.
During the final phase, you will probably need to use them a few times.
The sole purpose of running Power Banner Berserker here is to provide a lot of
Breakbar damage and burst damage between
Breakbars.
Always make sure you are on your Mace / Mace set when you use Violent Currents as in benefits from .
Depending on how fast your CC is, you may be able to trigger twice per Breakbar. It has a
Cooldown of three seconds and lasts for a total of four seconds.
Begin your CC by using , follow up with and .
Make sure that you swap early enough to Mace / Mace to avoid being stuck on that weapon set when the Breakbar Phase ends.
This is basically just a golem rotation. Make sure you out-DPS some of the DPS classes, it's very important.
Never, ever take a Pillar. You have no ranged capabilities and your DPS will suffer a lot!
Place your banners just before the start of the encounter and pick them up at the end of each phase.
Just before the end of a split phase, you can cast your banners ready for the next phase.
There is no reason to skill save during the split phases, so just keep up your rotation as normal. The faster you finish the split phase, the faster you are back at Adina.
Make sure you start on your Mace / Mace set for the start of this encounter as you will need to CC the Pylon.
You might be asked to help CC the Anomalies, along with the
Heal Druid. You can provide some ranged CC with .
If you are scared of the Knockback after each Pylon CC phase, you can use to prevent it.
Pick up your banners at the end of each phase, just before you get turned into a fireball. This way you can instantly cast them at the start of each phase.