Berserker Stance

Berserker Stance—often shortened to Berserking—is the Berserker-only martial stance built around maximum attack tempo and combat-skill throughput at the cost of Endurance and self-inflicted damage.

Overview

Class access

Berserker only.

Primary gain

Doubles attack speed and combat-skill recharge rate.

Accuracy & abilities

Increases chance to hit and combat-skill damage by 25%.

Tradeoff

Consumes Endurance and returns 8.3% of outgoing damage to the user as self-damage.

The current tooltip description is maintained by EQLWiki and the current client-derived combat reference. Numerical values are balance-sensitive. T2

Current Effect

Component	Current behavior	Boundary
Attack speed	2× attack speed while sufficient Endurance remains.	The June 2 patch notes state that the speed boost stops below 2% Endurance.
Combat-skill recharge	2× recharge rate for combat skills.	Which abilities qualify as combat skills should be verified from the in-game ability category and cooldown behavior.
Chance to hit	+25%.	This modifies the stance-supported hit calculation; it is not a claim that DEX raises PvE hit chance.
Combat-skill damage	+25%.	Applies to eligible combat-skill damage rather than every possible triggered effect.
Endurance cost	Half of damage dealt is charged to Endurance, reduced by Strategy.	Exact rounding and Strategy’s savings curve are unpublished.
Self-damage	User takes 8.3% of outgoing damage.	Critical and similar bonus damage are described as not increasing the Endurance charge; exact self-damage event ordering remains unverified.

Endurance Floor

Official June 2 patch notes state that Berserker Stance no longer receives its attack-speed boost when Endurance falls below 2%. This creates a practical floor: allowing Endurance to collapse removes the stance’s defining throughput advantage even before the character reaches absolute zero. T1

Operational implication: Strategy, Endurance regeneration, damage pacing, and recovery windows determine whether the stance can be sustained. The stance is strongest when a fight ends before resource collapse or when the build can deliberately cycle out of it to recover.

Build Fit

Melee Stack

Maximizes attack cadence and skill use, but the build must solve sustain and self-damage.

Knight Bruiser

Pairs high tempo with healing, lifetaps, slowing, or defensive stance access.

Boss Killer

Can compress burst windows when healing and slow reduce the danger of the self-damage tradeoff.

Tankless Sustain

Useful only when the supporting classes can keep both health and Endurance from collapsing.

Melee-Class Stacking

Berserker Stance is strongest when the loadout contributes several useful combat skills. Its doubled combat-skill recharge can accelerate Backstab, Monk strikes and kicks, Reave, Smite, Frenzy, Cleave, Bash, Slam, and other eligible skills gained from the combined classes. The exact eligibility list remains tooltip- and log-sensitive, but current player testing consistently treats multi-melee shells as the stance's highest-throughput use case. T3

The self-damage tradeoff makes healing, lifetaps, Slow, regeneration, and Divine Invocation natural partners. A build that cannot repair the stance's outgoing-damage feedback may show high burst but poor sustained DPS.

Comparison with Other Offensive Stances

Stance	Primary emphasis	Distinct cost profile
Offensive	Large general melee-damage increase	Endurance charged from bonus damage
Striker	Weapon-skill and non-weapon-skill ability multipliers	Endurance charged from damage dealt
Berserker	Attack speed, skill recharge, hit chance, and skill damage	Endurance plus direct self-damage

Open Verification

Exact interaction between the doubled attack-speed component and the global haste cap.
Exact list of abilities receiving the recharge-rate and combat-skill-damage modifiers.
Self-damage timing relative to lifetaps, reactive heals, procs, criticals, and lethal outgoing hits.
Strategy’s exact Endurance-reduction curve and rounding behavior.