by Atwell » Thu Mar 15, 2007 11:55 pm
Indeed. Frenzy applies +2dam with no other apparent effects. Berserk applies +10dam +2 ac and suppresses critical hits. A critical hit doubles damage, while a massive critical hit triples damage. Let D be your average damage per attack before either skill, including average weapon dice, damroll, and weapon damage effects. Let C be the probability that an attack is critical, and M be the probability that a critical hit is massive. It can be shown that frenzy yields better average damage when the following inequality holds:
D > 8/(C(1+M)) - 2
I have not measured C or M, and small changes in their values rapidly affect the outcome. I do suspect an M = .85 for warriors with the skill fully learned, and of course M = 0 for those without the massive critical hit skill.
I have not measured how frenzy or berserk affect backstab, deathgrip, deathtouch, or wraithtouch.