Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
This guide to the Berserker unlocks the potential of this reckless Gloomhaven melee fighter. With an optimal build to balance your damage output and self inflicting damage cards this page details your card selections, perks, enhancements and items. The Berserker (Lightning Bolts) is designed to be a character that can trade their own health to empower attacks while having many actions that change based on your current health pool that creates a tough balance for players to achieve.
Table of Contents:
– Berserker Cards, Perks, Enhancements and Items Overview
– Berserker Cards Detailed
– Berserker Perks Detailed
– Berserker Enhancements Detailed
– Berserker Items Detailed
Gloomhaven Berserker Guide Overview
This summary template section provides my recommendations that is suitable for most Gloomhaven situations. It creates a well rounded Berserker that relies on their own cards for success as much as possible to remove the variance of team composition by using a playstyle that self inflicts damage from time to time when it is to our advantage and has cards that can maximise the natural decreases in our health pool as a scenario progresses.
Berserker Cards Overview
- Level 1: Remove Glass Hammer, Blood Pact and Resolute Stand to create your starting deck of cards
- Level 2: Break The Chains replaces From The Brink
- Level 3: Spiked Armour replaces Growing Rage
- Level 4: Flurry of Axes replaces Numb the Pain
- Level 5: Shiny Distraction (level 4 card) replaces Bounce Back
- Level 6: Devil Horns replaces Cauterize
- Level 7: Burning Hatred replaces Flurry of Axes
- Level 8: Bone Breaker replaces Defiance of Death
- Level 9: Maw of Madness replaces Shiny Distraction
Berserker Perks Priority Overview
- Remove two -1 cards
- Replace one -1 card with one +1 card (take twice)
- Remove four zeros
- Add one +2 fire card (take twice)
- Replace one +0 card with one rolling +2 card (take twice)
- Add one rolling stun card (take twice)
- Add one rolling +1 disarm card (take twice)
- Add two rolling heal +1 cards
- Add two rolling wound cards (take twice)
- Ignore negative item effects
Berserker Enhancements Priority Overview
- Add Jump to the bottom of Spiked Armour or to the bottom of Dazing Wound
- Add Attack to the top of Burning Hatred
- Add Wound to the top of Unbridled Power
- Add additional target to the top of Break the Chains
Berserker Items Priority Overview
- Minor Stamina Potion
- Iron Helmet
- Cloak of Invisibility
- Boots of Striding
- Minor Healing Potion
- War Hammer
Gloomhaven Berserker Guide Detailed
This detailed portion of the Berserker guide outlines some alternative paths for the Berserker player given this class has many great card choices.
Berserker Cards Detailed
- Starting Cards: The Berserker has flexible options for starting card choices based on your game specifics and is the start of a familiar pattern of having flexible card choices available to us. Starting with the two obvious removals from our possible options Glass Hammer offers us little value with the top burn action for the vast majority of scenarios although should be brought back in for boss fights as necessary due to the high single traget damage. Second is Blood Pact that despite being a massive attack 6 at level 1 doesn’t fit into our balanced playstyle and more suited to a playstyle that yo-yos in health constantly with a dedicated support healer sitting behind us although once again can be viable if you have that in your team. The third card removal is the hardest choice with my default recommendation being Resolute Stand as the top burn attack is weak until much later when your maximum hit point value is higher as you level up. That being said these decisions can leave us a little exposed in terms of fast initiatives and if you have adequate healing available in your party you might want to drop From The Brink or even Furios Aid instead.
- Level 2 Cards: Our first of many difficult level up choices, Reckless Offensive is an incredibly attractive looking card but before you lock it in you’ll need to stop to consider just how often you feel comfortable playing the top of this card. Not only do we need to consider the situation is rare in itself albeit more common at 4 player party sizes but also how often we want to dive head first into such a position due to the potential damage we will receive and with the basically useless bottom action it quickly loses that attractiveness. That being said I have taken this card successfully in a 4 player party that was support heavy with the likes of disarms and stuns that meant it was much safer to use this card so factor in your own situation otherwise take Break The Chains.
- Level 3 Cards: The difficult decisions continue at level 3 with two top actions that are both useless to us as Fatal Fury has limited damage output at our current level and we have better cards at the higher levels where it starts to make sense while Spiked Armour retaliate is not the path we want to take for damage output. That leaves us only two considerations for these cards which is the bottom action and their initiative values to consider in our choice with Fatal Fury winning the action comparison while Spiked Armour is the stronger initiative. Like our decisions so far as the Berserker this becomes a bit of a personal choice although the better initiative of Spiked Armour is my recommendation.
- Level 4 Cards: Finally an easy decision for the Berserker with Flurry of Axes adding a huge area of effect damage move that we will use when the time is just right to devastate a room full of enemies and worthy of the burn action. Like all useful burn cards in Gloomhaven we are happy to find a repeatable useful action on the other half with a move 5 that provides the Berserker their largest move (without taking damage) so far. An important note from here in terms of replacement cards is that while I provided recommendations in the overview section you really need to consider your own card usage when playing as the Berserker. One such example of this is Furios Aid that I’ve recommend we retain for the bottom heal all the way to level 9 but if you have an abundance of healing on your team this is a clear card to remove given the top action isn’t really offering as much.
- Level 5 Cards: Level 5 is a really strange level for the standard Berserker build with neither offering value to our current deck. On the one hand we have Final Fight that immediately exhausts us for killing a normal or elite enemy which thematically sounds great but isn’t really necessary in an actual scenario while the bottom is just a conditional move when we aren’t hurting for more move actions. Meanwhile Seeing Red is designed to be used in a Berserker build that seeks to float around half HP during a scenario to maximise their damage output but the reward for this micromanagement (and support from teammates) really isn’t worth it. Instead Berserker players will want to look back to previous card options with my recommendation being Shiny Distraction from level 4 as it offers a fast initiative, fire generation and guaranteed advantage if we don’t need to move for an attack. Players can also consider the level 2 or 3 card you didn’t take previously though if that card fills a gap you have found when playing just expect to be little restricted in your fire generation combos as fire is key to an upcoming level 7 power spike as you’ll only have Cauterize for now and an upcoming level 6 card that are both top attack based generators.
- Level 6 Cards: As noted above we’ll be taking Devil Horns at level 6 given this gives us fire generation, a reliable area of effect attack that offers wound and even a bottom solid bottom attack option for some burst rounds when necessary. The alternative Unstoppable Destruction isn’t even that bad of a card when dealing with shielded enemies at this level but really cannot compete with all of these flexible elements which Devil Horns brings. With this card having a similar function to Cauterize it’s a clear replacement option although if you didn’t take Break the Chains it might be tempting to keep Cauterize so you have at least one ranged attack available when you can’t be near an enemy or can’t close the distance.
- Level 7 Cards: Level 7 offers two great cards once again and it’s a shame we can only take one but Burning Hatred is the winner for its incredible damage output with fire available that can replace our burn action in Flurry of Axes. Careless Charge isn’t necessarily a bad card if preferred with a move and attack top that is a fantastic combination on any Gloomhaven card and a scenario specific persistent effect that allows us to ignore all negative conditions that removes a lot of frustration from the likes of wound and poison.
- Level 8 Cards: At level 8 players get another hard hitting attack in Bone Breaker which also provides another fire generation tool so we are no longer at risk from bad short rests. The bottom also gives a great utility bottom attack that has its purpose from time to time such as bringing a flying target down to the ground for traps.
- Level 9 Cards: After all the tough choices as the Berserker level 9 is an esay decision for the standard Berserker playstyle. The Maw of Madness gives us our own self heal for the first time since our level 1 cards that doubles as an attacking move with another ranged bottom attack that adds flexibility while being a potential 8 damage base if we trade enough health.
Berserker Perks Detailed
The Berserker perk priority is to trim those negative and zero values to help our consistency first. Beyond this I recommend players grab the +2 fire card option as we’ve got several cards that add some additional strength when fire is available and while a random fire roll shouldn’t be relied upon it might mean we can make use of these outside your typical combo.
With the fire added we can pick up the +2 rolling to remove more zeroes from our deck and then we look towards the always useful stun and disarm that plays nicely into our melee exposure before adding wound and heal that are also nice although a lower priority. You’ll notice that I recommend taking ignore negative item effects last as our armour of choice doesn’t provide negative item effects so this perk is essentially useless to us. If you personally find yourself using one of the heavier items that add negative modifiers though then consider grabbing this earlier as appropriate.
Berserker Enhancements Detailed
Like our card choices your Berserker enhancements are going to be informed by your ultimate selections at level ups and which cards you remove as there is some flexibility. The general priority should be obtain a source of jump as this adds great flexibility to our melee playstyle and is relatively cheap for the benefit it can provide given we already have enough base movement.
After this point the Berserker doesn’t really need anything but some additional base attack, additional wound and targets on our core cards are the ones that provide the best available value. Other potential options not noted in the overview section could include strengthen on the bottom of Furious Aid if you have held onto this heal until level 9 if your team lacks adequate healing.
Berserker Items Detailed
From the starting item options the Berserker has access to several core items including the Iron Helmet, Boots of Striding and the Cloak of Invisibility. While the cloak may seem like an odd choice for a melee focused hero who usually favour the shield focused heavy armours and use the ignore negative item effect perks the Berserker benefits greatly from aggressive plays with Burning Hatred and Flurry of Axes before going invisible and retreating the following round which is where jump is also nice to have.
Beyond this point of non starter items we want to pay attention to items that provide healing, add area of effect to our melee attacks or allow us to buff our attacks with extra damage.
For information and build guides on other Gloomhaven character options visit our Gloomhaven classes overview and the related Gloomhaven class tier list.
