Berserker

Berserker is one of the many role-playing subclasses in Elder Tale. It was a Scandinavian server-exclusive subclass before its implementation on the other servers. There is a detailed article about it in the Theldesia Gazette Volume 29.

Overview
The Berserker represents the warriors who fight and live in remote and frontier lands.

Obviously, most of the Berserker's skills are combat-oriented, like Berserkerization which temporarily strengthens combat abilities. To balance its effects, the whole subclass is affected by weakened defensive stats and by being unable to use some abilities. Therefore, it is not adapted to all builds, but rather specialized for dedicated builds that take into account its quirks and weaknesses.

In the original Scandinavian server, it is connected to plenty of raid content that composes the server’s unique storyline, some of these raids even inaccessible unless there is at least one Berserker in the raid team, making it a popular and demanded subclass. The subclass-changing quest was also meshed with a spectacular storyline similar to an adventure story that included participating in some kind of theatrical raid, meeting Valkyries and being recognized as a hero through numerous all these trials. Moreover, dedicated quests imply dedicated items : those quests and raids give Secret-class and Fantasy-class items exclusive to Berserkers. Thanks to all these perks, Berserker has one of the best performance in the ported-subclass category.

However, when Berserker was ported to the Japanese server, it was without its storyline quests, so the subclass-changing quest was changed to a simple but grueling task of collecting a thousand items dropped by Giant monsters in the raid zones of Ezzo, and bringing them to a NPC in the northernmost part of Ezzo, so it remained a minor subclass with an extremely small population.

Bersekers in Theldesia
In Theldesia, the Berserker is a religious warrior whose spiritual beliefs are typical to the northern frontier region called the "Northern Side of Nord" (which corresponds to Earth’s Scandinavian Peninsula). There, spirits of various sizes and importance are worshiped, but the one that is most seriously worshiped is the guardian spirit of war, the Valkyrie.

In other parts of the world, she is just known as the Sword Princess, but in the Northern Side of Nord, she is interpreted and worshiped as a being who controls battle and courage, loves brave warriors and sometimes gives them blessings. It is said that upon receiving such blessing, they gain a fearless soul even unafraid of death. The Berserkers are those heroic warriors who were seen and blessed by the Valkyries.

Due to their fearless fighting style and unique culture and beliefs, they tend to be seen as illiterate barbarian warriors by the other regions, but the warriors blessed by the Valkyries are noble fighters who, ashamed of cowardice and underhanded acts, yearn for fair battles in order to become a hero loved by the spirits.

The "warrior culture" they have is familiar to the concept of chivalry and Bushido (though certainly cruder by comparison). As such, the Berserker is originally inseparable from the culture unique to the Northern Side of Nord and was nowhere to be found elsewhere, except for an existing, insignificant number of people who accidentally drifted over from there.

Known Skills

 * Lunatic Armor : Doubles both damage dealt and damage taken.

Known Berserkers

 * Krusty
 * Richou

Trivia

 * It is unknown when Berserker was ported outside of the Scandinavian server, so it is possible for those who possess the subclass, like Krusty and Richou, to have gone there to get it.