Berserkers vs Barbarians, who would win?

[keterys]

Feral Charge and, far more randomly, Rampage can add a ton of damage to an encounter.

If all you do every encounter is Storm of Blades, then charge, the Berserker is more consistent damage (MBAs are more exploitable than Howling Strike) and the Barbarian has better spike. It's possible that the Berserker's extras on the MBA from Battle Awareness would sidle things even further along in its favor.

Impaling Spear does make a world of balance difference, unfortunately.

 

[Zaphling]

Lets compare each of the barbarian's class features:

Rage strike, feral might, rampage, barbarian's agility
vs
defender aura, vengeanful guardian, heartland, berserk

Barbarian's agility vs heartland: BA's AC is lower than heartland since berserker's keys off at Dexterity, while barbarians mostly keys off at Constitution, while there is also a Charisma one.
Heartland is a bit stronger too since it has a passive bonus at level 4, which costs a feat to the Obarbarian.

im not sure 'bout the next comparisons but I'll just try my best...

Defender aura vs Feral might: both are passives, although FM has an encounter power. DA has a constant application, while FM applies only if the Obarb kills an enemy.

Vengeanful guardian vs Rampage: Both contribute to damage, although they can't be compared since VG is a defender power, while Rampage is a striker power.

Rage Strike vs Berserker Fury: Both are the strongest striker mechanic of the two. RS outweighs BF when it comes to burst novas which shortens the encounter time significantly, but can be used only 2x daily. BF can be triggered every encounter (assuming you always gets bloodied, or don't care about defending with your primal powers), but has a little boost to damage and can fall short if you are the only defender of the team.

Since the berserker is a defender also, i understand that they have light shield prof. which they are ahead by only 1 point vs the Obarb's class traits.

 

[keterys]

Treat Rage Strike like it doesn't exist for our purposes (you're using Rages for their other benefits, like adding Str damage to every hit you do)

Both types of barbarians can have the same Dex, so Barbarian Agility should just compare straight across to Heartland.

Both types will probably just end up using a two-handed weapon, so I wouldn't worry as much about the light shield prof. There is a niche for a heavy shield Berserker, but it's probably overshadowed by Arid unless you have a specific shield-using niche (Overwhelming Impact?)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The old-skool barbarian imc deals holy hell in damage in pretty much every fight not involving weakening, insubstantial, regenerating swarms. I don't know how a berserker would stack up, but the barbarian does just fine.

I wish I knew the power's name, but the barbarian PC in my game has a close burst 1 attack that inflicts ongoing damage.

Scarily good against swarms, who I don't believe have any special resistance to ongoing damage.

 

[keterys]

Probably Crimson Hurricane... which is a nice Rage cause it makes you do Str damage to enemies next to you when you do a primal melee attack.

 

[DracoSuave]

I wish I knew the power's name, but the barbarian PC in my game has a close burst 1 attack that inflicts ongoing damage.

Scarily good against swarms, who I don't believe have any special resistance to ongoing damage.

As the ongoing damage is the effect of a ranged or melee power, it's still a ranged or melee effect.

However, being a close burst, it eats swarms pretty nicely.

 

[andarilhor]

I have just one question on this topic: What do prevents a berserker of getting a Daily Rage power from other books and combine it with the berserker fury, accumulating both benefits this way?

 

[WalterKovacs]

I have just one question on this topic: What do prevents a berserker of getting a Daily Rage power from other books and combine it with the berserker fury, accumulating both benefits this way?

Nothing at all. However, using the Rage does, in turn, turn on the Fury class feature as well. They probably won't be taking the old primal at-wills that have rage riders, instead taking at-wills that are usable both before and after being in a fury mode.

The difference though is that, normally, a barbarian wants to rage ASAP to get continuous use of the power all encounter long, while a berserker may not want to be built to enter his fury right away. If they go full blown striker, they'll pretty much always be in a fury, and can afford to go full bore into dailies and pick up some rage supporting feats/paragon paths/items/utilities/etc. However, a more balanced barbarian may want to spend some time as a defender. So either they give up a few turns of rage, or they will go into rage right away, and have some martial encounter powers that don't do as much damage as a primal one would, so you aren't being a good striker, or a good defender. And, if you take any of the non-rage dailies (for example, the martial ones that give bonuses to the defender's aura) you probably aren't going to take any rage support (since you won't be raging 4/times per day), etc.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have just one question on this topic: What do prevents a berserker of getting a Daily Rage power from other books and combine it with the berserker fury, accumulating both benefits this way?

Nothing at all. Fury just makes the Berserker's martial at-wills work like Barbarian primal at-wills (they litterally become primal, and they get a +d damage rider). So it's no crazier than a regular barbarian Raging and then using regular barbarian at-wills.

What could concievably get a little crazy is a striker multi-classed to barbarian using melee basic attacks. A Slayer, for instance. He'd only get to use Fury 1/day, but he'd stack the barbarians +d8s rider onto his MBAs along with his Slayer +DEX damage bonus for the balance of the encounter, while other striker MC feats generally only give you the striker damage bonus once, or maybe until the end of your next turn.