With the MF easter egg MF on gear doesn’t really matter much anymore for full TZ clearing. That was always the biggest strength of Berserk. You could stack a ton of MF and still kill efficiently. Now that advantage is mostly gone, so it opens the door for other builds to compete. Enter the long memed singer. If you want to hork, kill more than just 1 monster at a time, and have a reliable answer to tier 5 Heralds on a barb… I got the build for you. I spent the last week perfecting the build and think I got it down perfect.

If you take only one thing away from this. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE INSIGHT ON MERC. With the right gear you have enough mana and the absurd amount of juvs you are horking to not need insight. This means you can now use Dreadfang on your merc which will more than double your damage output when it procs.

Strengths:
1. It can hork
2. It can hork
3. Physical and Magic damage plus amp means it can kill anything.
4. AOE clear compared to Berserk.
5. Can perma stun tier 5 heralds (this will take awhile but it works).
6. Max Howl makes finding champs/unique packs really easy.

Weakness:
1. Not a boss killer. Even the 1 point into Berserk does more damage to bosses. The max Battle Cry though makes it so you almost always hit when they are cursed with it which is nice.
2. Struggles outside of players 1. It can do players 8 no problem but the clear speed is slow outside the easier enemy areas. I would say players 3 is fine and 5 is stretch.

Build:
We want to hit the 105fcr breakpoint with as much mana as possible and as many skills as possible. With my setup I have 1.5k mana, 4.2k life, and 2.1k war cry. Resistance are not maxed but it doesn’t matter. Everything is stunned or terrified from howl anyway.

Singer really comes down to two things:
1. Mana management
2. Doing enough damage to matter

Every guide I can find says use Insight on your merc for mana management. I tried taking a different approach. If I could get enough mana with gear alone, I could let my merc use Reaper’s Toll. Decrep from toll gives that sweet -50% physical res which is a HUGE damage boost. Then I realized I could do even better. The new Dreadfang sword has a 33% chance to cast amp. You know what is better than -50% pi? -100%pi. The difference in clearing high health monsters or stone skin is substantial when they are amped and really takes this from a meme build to a contender with Berserk and in my opinion surpasses it.

Here is my gear:
Helm – Coven (ideally 3 war cry / 3 BO)
Weapon Slots - 2x Spirit (dual swords or sword + shield depending if you care for the resistance). You could go 2xhoto or 1x hoto 1x spirt if you want. I find the extra ~600mana to be well worth not using hoto. You need to have a total of 65fcr here to hit the 105BP.
Armor- Enigma
Belt – Arach
Gloves - Frostburn
Boots – Silkweave. You could do gores or something with more res. It only ends up adding 50ish mana in the end.
Rings- 2x Soj
Amulet – Preference. I am using Highlord’s so when I do need to switch to Grief it is that much quicker. You could go Maras for res and skills, 3wc for damage, or 2barb/2wc + mana.
Grief on swap for bosses and Physical Immunes.

Charms:
This is preference. I have 6x WC CGs and 7x 17 mana scs. You could easily swap any of the skillers for more mana if you want. Each 17 mana sc gives me 52 after all the bonuses and bo.

Skills:
Find Item – 1
Find Potion – 20
Howl – 20
War Cry – 20
Battle Cry – 20
Shout – 1 prereq
Battle Orders – 1
Battle Command – 1
Blade Mastery – 1
Increased Stamina – 1 prereq
Increased Speed – 1
Iron Skin – 1
Natural Resistance – 1
Bash – 1 prereq
Stun – 1 prereq
Concentrate – 1 prereq
Berserk – 1
Taunt – Whatever is left

Stats:
Strength – Enough to wear gear
Dexterity – Enough for Phase Blade
Vitality – Everything else
Energy - None

Merc:
Like I said earlier decrep/amp are game changers for those beefier enemies. A5 bash merc gives you amp which is just better than decrep however they do have Battle Cry which overrides amp. Luckily the AI seems to like to use Battle Cry first then start hitting which is the preferred order but they can throw in Battle Crys and erase amp which is annoying. A2 Mercs with Reaper’s Toll don’t have that problem and will do a bit more damage. I prefer 5 for Amp but decrep works fine as well. I use Treachery and Andariel’s Visage to hit the ias break points. The faster they hit the more they cast amp/decrep.

General Gameplay:
Tele into the middle of anything, war cry, hork, drink 1 of the 5 rejuvenation potions that drop to refill mana, next group. Seriously you will never run out of rejuvenation potions when horking. 1k mana is usually enough to get you through 2 or three champ/unique monsters anyway. If you go double Spirit you are pushing 1.5k which makes things even easier.

You can use Howl and the AOE is pretty much the entire screen. Champs/Uniques are not affected by it so they will not have the fear icon over their head and they will be attacking you while everything else runs away. Makes finding them easy.

Higher Tier Heralds:
War Cry stun does work on Heralds. It make take a few tries but you can end up getting them stun locked. Depending on the monster you could just war cry them to death. If the monster has more health or is stoned skin and thorns enchanted, your merc is going to kill themselves quickly unless you throw juvs at them non-stop which mean you lose amp. For these I will use Battle Cry to reduce their defense and damage, switch to Berserk and start bashing after stun. Some enemies you can get 3 or 4 swings of Berserk in before you need to start War Cry to keep the stun lock going. Not going to lie, some of these fights can take a few minutes if you get a real nasty spawn. Easily the weakest part of the build. But I have not come across a Herald I couldn’t kill and the hork makes it worth it.

TLDR: MF easter egg and full act TZ it means all gear can go towards damage, mana, and health. Berserk is no longer the only option for horker. Singer is a great clearer. Focus on getting enough mana 1k minimum you can use Dreadfang on your merc for amp making the clear speed way better.

War cry has always been interesting to me, nice to see someone using it. How does it do in games over p3 though..?

With 20find pots and grim ward + stun so they cant run away + amp from merc its pretty okay

Stomp a pack sing, first non boss dead = grim ward, continue to sing until pack clear, 200fcr hork with 75% chance and repeat

The mf thing you are talking about has been around since classic.

Sooooo….

Yeah more about the full TZ making it worth it.

i'm sry, did I hear u say health and mana issues are resolved via full juvs?

idunno, if you can afford to "tele" into a pack as a Barb, that means you're rich enough to afford an Enigma already.

Nn to hork at that point

Relying on mercs to get amp damage is a recipe for disaster anytime before you have Nigma. And even when you do, they still manage to find ways to kill themselves.

But good thing you're horkin' a ton of gold to revive them 50k a pop every 3 games.

Yeah this is 100% you already need enigma build. Horker has pretty much always been about tc87 and finishing grail not about wealth. Chaos run = wealth.

Yep. Hork hits pots as well. With 1.5k mana you can clear multiple champ and unique packs. You end up leaving a lot left on the ground. When you run low on mana pop one and pick one up to replace. If you only have like 700 mana you need to drink too often. 1k is the sweet spot where its not bothersome to pick them up and you are needing mana between kills.

Dreadfang is such a godsend. Finally a reliable way to proc amp and it does indeed make a HUGE difference for a singer (WW and frenzy too ofc but thanks to thorns aura they're not good for heralds)