Help me my berz sucks

hello everyone!
i started again my char after a while and wanted to do endgame content, but im stuck in tier 9-10 maps.
Clear feels smooth with groundslam, but struggle to kill every boss. i was fascinated by frostbreath and wanted to do a melee build with phys and cold damage. currently i start from 6.5k damage and go up to 10k buffed but i wish there was some way to boost damage fast and cheap.
survivability feels ok with full hp, meh if i turn up hatred since i went blood magic

any suggestion? is my build not viable at all for end content? any opinion would be appreciated, thx!


https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ZonZaucker/characters

p.s. im new to the forum and i posted out of frustration, hope i did it right and polite

You are using a low DPS unique weapon, your skill gem setups are a mess, and your tree doesn't have any particular focus. I'd recommend looking at one of the many guides available on the forum. Ground Slam is also not in a great spot right now.

Well, as Kira says that build is a bit of a mess.
The most efficient way would be to drop it and start a new character. Dont let that discourage, to get to endgame on your firsts characters is hard, more so if you are building them yourself instead of following a guide. It took me a few self-build characters before they could actually do red maps.

If you dont want to drop the character (nor the frostbreath) and instead you want to try and fix it this is what i would do.

Drop the shield, go for a dual wield Frostbreaths like the real berserk you are! (berserkers with shields? your ancesters would be sad). I propouse you change from an hybrid physical/bleeding/elemental you have there to a full elemental dmg build and for that this is what i came up with trying to fix your passive tree
LINK HERE
I tryed to keep as much from your original tree as posible, but it will still requiere a lot of regrets if you dont have respect points remaining.

Now, gem links.
In the 6l armor: Ground slam > Melee physical damage > Added fire damage > Elemental damage with attacks > Faster attacks > PHYSICAL TO LIGHTNING. You will need to reroll the colors to get a 4 red 1 green 1 blue.
Now, this is important. Get all your gems out of your boots and only keep the HEAVY STRIKE. Now when you find a boss and you find yourself really really needing more single target damage what you can do is take the Ground slam out of your chestpiece and put the Heavy Strike there instead, just for the boss fight.

NEW BOOTS GEMS:
We are bringing the bois
VAAL DOUBLE STRIKE > Melee physical damage > Added fire damage > Faster attacks/Physical to lightning (i dont know witch one of them gives the more damage, you will have to test). This vaal skill will give you a LOT of single target damage. Charge it while cleaning and use it for bosses.

Helmet: I am not truly a fan of that setup but if you want to keep it i recomend you get the LEAP SLAM out of there and remplace it with an INCREASED DURATION. You are moving that leap slam somewhere else.

New Frostbreath:
LEAP SLAM > Faster attacks > Fortify.

You are left with your boots and the gems that were on your shield. Fit there what you like the most. I am not a fan of you using any aura with blood magic to say the least but feel free to try.

EDIT: You should be able to drop blood magic if you already have Pain Reaver.

thx everybody for your replies!

i dont really like to follow builds because i like to experiment and find a way myself. now i dont have this much time and this game is very deep to master so im lookin for constructive discussion on what i've done sofar, and u were very insightful! thx for ur time and consideration.
consider this is my 1st and only char. my gems slot are really messy in part because im mostly levelling a lot of gems to try many different setups.

in game i use:
GS to clear: thx for ur advice, i was also realizing that using too many things wont work. i will drop bleeding OR elemental and look what work best for me. ah, i was using sunder b4 finding the GS gem, u say its on a better spot?
i was already switching Heavy Strike on 6L for bosses when they really tough and not really usin on 4L if not to maim bosses when they not that hard.
Leap Slam: just for mobility and reposition in fight/delving.
Stone golem and Ancestral protector to bait enemies/add some damage.
helmet setup: i dont have any clear ideas here, CWDT and immortal call seems good in theory but i've never noticed a big difference in game, molten shell was fun in early level when u kill mobs attackin u.

tree: i can respec all my points if i want with regrets. tree was the most difficult part to plan, just got the importance of life nodes and trying to maximize them. i went bers mostly because all my tree is for def and i found myself with no damage, now im building a lot of life regen to cope with degen (planning to go Rite of Ruin) and sacrificing some damage in equipment.

u say i should drop shield and go double wield? so if i wanted to use shield with proficiency i had to go chieftain?
i've got a Cameria Maul and a couple other nice maces, but the double damage on chilled enemies on Frostbreath i think it's not shown in ability dps, hence easily outdamage them. surething i have to get rid of all shield nodes.
the Vaal Double Strike thing seems good, so u say it will be enough for bosses even in a 4L? yummy!
Aura: i was just leveling it and not activating because its a nice damage in theory. i've found an Essence Worm and was thinking a way to setup the aura with no life reserved, dunno if it's worth.

First of all... I got to read again what i wrote and oh my god the amount of grammal mistakes that slipped off the fast revision i gave it before posting. English is not my native lenguage but still some phases just were left half ended without me realising it.

Second (and the important here) I realiced today (Dont ask why, it just clicked on my head while doing things) that you are using blood magic while being a berserk. If you already have the PAIN REAVER node of the asendancy you should be able to drop BLOOD MAGIC and still have enough mana sustain to reserve an aura and probably a herald without running out of mana for your skills.

thx again and dont worry too much about english, im not native too and dont even mind about reading it again; i read very smoothly in your post, maybe we come from same country? english is raped every day in every forum even from natural speakers from my experience :D

returning in thread: im trying to implement ur advices, as u can see as the char is public. the jump in damage is real, i put Cameria's maul offhand and works nice. 1 question: i just noticed the "main hand attacks double damage to chilled enemies" in the character screen. does this mean that it doubles the damage showed in the line "main hand total combined damage", right?
Now with level 5 phys to lightning GS damage is 18k base, 22k with rage, 30k with rage + ancestral + taste of hate buffs.

my defences now are weak tho, and i can easily get stunlocked. playin with a shield was kind "afk brain", now i have to pay more attention and use more flasks. Also miss the bleeding mechanics, it was fun to see bosses who run a lot losin life so fast. next berz will be bleedin based :D

im adjusting the tree and im really reluctant to drop Blood magic and Golem's Blood. it's so much life and regen! all the maces nodes are really necessary to get the damage needed for end game? also if i go Pain reaver i lose Aspect of carnage or War bringer or Rite of Ruin which i find much more useful.
Thanks again!

Get Unwavering Stance for the stuns


About the damage, Frostbreath shoud be doubling the offhand damage as you say, i tend to not trust the tooltip damage anyway. I got the mace damage nodes as they were nearby and were a good source of damage.
And then keep trying, the passive tree you have still needs work, use some tools like poeplanner.com to work on it. And i recomend you to try pain reaver if you have the time (dropping war bringer) as you lost a lot of leech when going elemental.

I just hope i am not giving you more problems than solutions x_x

update:
at the moment im playin around with POB and poeplanner to try different things, i know the major fault of my build was the lack of focus and specialization and im tryin to fix with the elemental route, which is very cheap and effective. damage gone up from 10k to roughly 35k only with tree management and switch to dual wielding.
defense is not even so bad, stunlock was false issue: maybe coz i was practicing with Tabula Rasa! im back to the other side of stunlock with GS and even in the boss fight in T9-10 im doin fine: i take more damage, but with some mobility and leech/regen it's not that hard (only ele reflection/ele weakness maps proved a bit tough) to finish bosses 10 times faster than before. as long as i got >6k HP which is my comfort zone to avoid burst at this level (still dye sometimes coz i play with 1min attention span).
Double strike/vaal DS is amazing and do more single target damage on 4L than GS on 6L.

Now im farming maps and looking forward to get to leveling a bit (stuck on 87 for more than 2 weeks) and try uber lab to complete ascendancy. hope this thread helped marauders newbies like me who dont have much time to play and cant afford expensive gear (most expensive piece is 6L chest at ~80c).
discussion with more experienced players avoid a lot of frustration for sure, especially when u dont spend enough time studying game mechanics in deep.