That's how I learned Java, and it was a huge motivator in getting me involved in the field to begin with.

There's a ton of Easter eggs in the code, plus unused classes and sprites, and the art style isn't that difficult to pick up, which makes modding Shattered a surprisingly possible project even for someone just learning Java. It does take some time to get yourself familiar with how things work and programming constructs, but it can feel super cool to make your change and play with it!

It's a long road to do anything truly major, but if you stick to it and have ideas you can absolutely make them happen.

Berserker responds quite well to armor investment. You can consider his rage to be compensation for the damage you lose by investing heavily into armor.

With all this armor, if you can get a flail or glaive, you can safely augment them for damage to give them absolutely absurd damage scaling (they gain 1 min and 8 max damage per upgrade and have impressive base damage, after damage augment it goes to 1.5/12 damage per upgrade). Glaive is heavier and slower, but it does have +1 range to allow you to fight scorpios.

Just be wary of magic users. Take Improvised Projectiles as a way to shut down surprise warlocks, and look for movement boosters (especially chains) to help close the gap on these foes.

I enjoy blindweed, since it's basically a free win against a mob of your choice. Evil Eye charging? Blindweed to stop the charge. Scorpio? Blindweed, now you can actually approach them and get free hits on them. Warlock? Blindweed to stop them from shooting at you.

Blind makes them not see you, cripple makes them lose track of you and also facilitates free hits, even in melee.

With warden it's basically invisibility on demand, which is super nice as well.