Berserk (psycast)
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This article relates to content added by Royalty (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
Berserk
Induce an angry psychosis in the target's mind, causing them to attack anyone nearby.
Base Stats
- Type
- Psycast
Ability
Berserk is a level 5 psycast that drives a single target violently insane.
Acquisition[edit]
There are two ways to acquire the berserk psycast:
- Upon reaching psylink level 5, a random psycast of level 5 is granted regardless of how this level up is achieved. This won't apply if the psycaster already knew one or more level 5 psycast.
- Berserk can also be acquired from a psytrainer naming it. See the psytrainer page for further details.
Summary[edit]
Upon casting, Berserk inflicts a target pawn with the Berserk mental state for 900 ticks (15 secs), modified by Psychic sensitivity. While this effect persists, affected pawns will move towards and melee attack the nearest pawn, hostile or otherwise. They will be unable to perform any other action, including making ranged attacks, using equipped utility items, or using abilities granted by genes.
Valid targets for Berserk include any psychically sensitive pawn which is neither downed nor in a mental state within 20 tiles of the caster, respecting line of sight. Note that all mech bosses (the Diabolus, War queen, and Apocriton) and the Dreadmeld
are unable to be targeted by Berserk, for the listed reason of "Psychic insanity immune".
Additionally, note that berserk is considered a harmful ability, and will incur a staggering goodwill penalty of −75 when cast on pawns from a neutral or allied faction.
Analysis[edit]
Berserk serves as a potent combination of both damage and crowd control, turning enemy pawns against each other while leaving your own pawns free to clean up any survivors. While the relatively high neural heat gain and psyfocus cost prohibit excessive use, the effect is often powerful enough to swing combat encounters with only a few casts.
Berserk's primary (and ostensibly only) use case is rather straightforward - sow chaos in enemy groups by forcing them to fight one another, while your pawns gun them down. However, the aforementioned psyfocus cost and neural heat gain ask for some prudence when selecting a target for Berserk. Generally speaking, the best targets for Berserk are the most dangerous - though not always, and not always for the same reasons.
- If using berserk for pure distraction, it is best to target heavily armored pawns, such as those wearing plate or cataphract armor, or centipedes in mechoid raids, maximizing the duration of the distraction.
- If using berserk to take out a particularly dangerous enemy, such as those wielding doomsday rocket launchers or frag grenades, one approach is to berserk the target directly. This guarantees the targeted pawn won't fire their weapon, and tends to result in a quick death as the entire raid fires on the target.
- If a dangerous pawn has splash damage, another approach is to target another nearby enemy, thus potentially causing collateral damage. However, this relies on drawing the ire of the dangerous enemy, and needs the targeted pawn to survive long enough for friendly fire to occur. This strategy can be used against impids to waste their fire spew charges; while the collateral damage will be minimal, wasting their fire ability is still extremely worthwhile.
Additionally, Berserk is of particular use against mechanoid raids, specifically those containing centipedes. Berserking a centipede will disable it for an extended duration compared to other psycasts such as Stun or Chaos skip, the centipede's bulk will allow it to distract other mechs (allowing colonists to fire), and the centipede will be heavily weakened once the berserk ends.
Lastly, if berserked animals (or non-colonist humanoids) are engaged in a melee fight, the pawns will continue fighting even after Berserk's duration ends, only stopping when one is downed. While this contributes some increased effectiveness when used against humanoid raiders, this effect is particularly useful to hunt groups of animals, like a herd of thrumbos or pack of rhinos. By berserking one animal, that animal will almost certainly fight another of its kind, until one is dead, and the other will likely bleed out soon. Thus, animals can be hunted in relative safety.
Version history[edit]
- Royalty DLC Release - Added.
- 1.1.2571 - Cost reduced from 35 to 40, range reduced from 25 to 15, duration reduced from 30 to 15.