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This article is about the unit in Age of Mythology: Retold. For the unit in Age of Empires II, see Berserk (Age of Empires II). |
| “ | Infantry. Good against whatever it can reach. | ” |
| —In-game description | ||
The Berserk (named Ulfsark before Retold) is a lightly armored infantry unit in Age of Mythology. They wear animal skins on their heads and form the backbone of the Norse army.
Like other basic infantry units Berserks are a soft counter against cavalry and as such are supposed to be cost-effective against most cavalry units. Heavier cavalry such as War Elephants and Jarls require hard counter units to be cost-effectively defeated.
Ability[]
Auto Scout (active): Enables the unit to automatically explore the map.- Hamask (passive, requires Hamask, Odin only): Moves and attacks faster as it loses hit points.
- Lifesteal (passive, requires Berserkergang, Tyr only): Regenerates 35% of damage dealt to enemy units.
- Nature's Eyes (passive, Loki only): Nearby animals and natural objects reveal their surroundings for a while.
- Valhalla's Chosen (passive, requires Call of Valhalla, Bragi only): Death yields Favor to this unit's owner.
Strengths and weaknesses[]
| Strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. |  Cavalry
|
| Weak vs. |  Ranged soldier,  Axeman,  Hypaspist,  Throwing Axeman,  Cheiroballista
|
Further statistics[]
God bonuses[]
General technologies[]
- Medium Infantry, Heavy Infantry, and Champion Infantry: +1 Line of Sight, +10% attack%, and +10%/15%/20% hit points, respectively.
- Copper Weapons, Bronze Weapons, and Iron Weapons: +10% attack.
- Dwarven Weapons (Thor): +10% attack.
- Copper Armor, Bronze Armor, and Iron Armor: -10% hack vulnerability.
- Meteoric Iron Armor (Thor): -10% hack vulnerability.
- Copper Shields, Bronze Shields, and Iron Shields: -10% pierce vulnerability.
- Dragonscale Shields (Thor): -10% pierce vulnerability.
- Levy Longhouse Soldiers and Conscript Longhouse Soldiers: -20% training time.
Myth technologies[]
- Eyes in the Forest (Loki): Animals and natural objects within its Line of Sight reveal a radius of 30 around them for 6 seconds.
- Hamask (Odin): Increases the movement speed and attack by +0.25% for every missing 1% hit point.
- Freyr's Gift (Freyr): +10% hit points.
- Dwarven Breastplate (Forseti): -20% hack vulnerability.
- Servants of Glory (Ullr): +5% movement speed and passive short burst of speed after standing idle.
- Call of Valhalla (Bragi): +15% hit points and grant 1 favor when they fall in battle.
- Berserkergang (Tyr): Regenerate hit points of 35% of the damage dealt to enemy units.
- Twilight of the Gods (Vidar): +10% hit points and +20% bonus damage against Heroes.
- Silent Resolve (Vidar): Gain melee attack damage while idle at a rate of +0.05/second, for a maximum of +3.7 hack.
- Fury of the Fallen (Vidar): +25% damage for each allied unit killed for a short time.
- Lone Wanderer (Odin): +10% movement speed. (Before Retold)
- Swine Array (Bragi): 2× damage to cavalry. (Before Retold)
Relics[]
- Canopic Jar of Imsety: +25% training speed.
- Gaia's Book of Knowledge: +3.0 attack multiplier vs. Titans.
- Gungnir, Odin's Spear: +5% attack.
- Harter's Folly: +2 Line of Sight.
- Pelt of Argus: +6 Line of Sight.
- Armor of Achilles: -5% hack vulnerability.
- Thundercloud Shawl: -5% pierce vulnerability.
Strategy[]
Berserks are critical in the early stages of the game, especially the Archaic Age since they are the primary Norse builders and scout units. Norse players start with one Berserk. To lose this initial Berserk early is dangerous, as the player must spend more time and resources to replace it. Berserks are well-rounded units: they're good against cavalry and fair against infantry.
Berserks are powerful in melee combat but will lose to counter-infantry so it is best to use them with Throwing Axemen or Raiding Cavalry. They are more lightly armored than their counterparts, the Hoplite, Spearman and Murmillo, but have a higher attack. With the right upgrades and gods, the Berserk' attack can be boosted to a maximum of 16 (compared to 14 for both the Murmillo and Hoplite). As infantry units, they are weak against ranged units.
If Thor chosen as the major god, a Dwarven Armory can be built to research technology beyond iron. With Forseti, Bragi, and Tyr as minor gods, many improvements beneficial to Berserks become available. With all those upgrades, Berserks will have a very high attack, high hit points, decent armor, fast speed and high rate of attack while still being cheap and fast to produce and being able to build.
Norse Gatherers and Dwarves can be turned into Berserks at any time, resources permitting.
In Retold, the Hamask technology enables Berserks to gain increasingly high boosts to their attack and speed as they lose health, encouraging their use as relatively expendable mass units and turning their low armor into a blessing in disguise.
Changelog[]
Age of Mythology[]
- The unit is named Ulfsark and has 80 hit points. Female Gatherers transform into the male Ulfsarks.
- Originally, Ulfsarks had 5 pierce armor. With patch 1.07, they have 10 pierce armor.
- Ulfsarks have 3 hack damage per second in the Archaic Age, 9 from the Classical Age, 30% hack armor, a ×3 multiplier vs. Obelisks, and ×1.5 vs. Turmae and Turma Heroes.
The Titans[]
- With patch 1.02, Ulfsarks do increased damage against Turmae.
Extended Edition[]
- With patch 1.5, Ulfsarks have a ×1.5 multiplier vs. Turmae and Turma Heroes.
Tale of the Dragon[]
- With patch 2.7, Ulfsarks have 85 hit points.
Retold[]
- The Ulfsark is renamed to Berserk, and can also be female, with a unique voice pack that is also shared with the Valkyrie and female Hero of Ragnarok. Female Gatherers transform into female Berserks.
- Berserks have 0.7 hack attack per hit in the Archaic Age, 6.5 from the Classical Age with 0.7 reload time, 35% hack armor, and no multipliers.
History[]
| “ | Viking warriors who wore bear skins into battle were known as Berserks. They were similar to Ulfhednar (wolfish warriors in their renowned tendency to enter battle frenzy. Berserks fought on foot, armed mainly with axes and swords. They generally wore minimal armor, preferring freedom of movement to heavier protection, for their raging state caused them to be unaffected by most wounds. | ” |
| —In-game help section | ||
| “ | Viking warriors who wore wolf skins into battle were known as Ulfsarks, another tradition of the Berserks (bear skins). These men were renowned for their tendency to go into battle frenzy. Ulfsarks fought on foot, armed mainly with axes and swords. They generally wore minimal armor, preferring the freedom of movement rather than the heavier protection. | ” |
| —In-game help section | ||
Trivia[]
- Champion Berserks are equipped with kite shields. However, this is anachronistic, as kite shields were used from the 10th century on. Also, wielding both a kite shield and a two-handed axe would be unwieldy.
- Though Berserks fight bare-chested in-game, their real-life counterparts historically wore mails (see gallery).
- If a Gatherer or Dwarf is converted to a Berserk while carrying resources, these will remain listed in the unit's infobox, even though the Berserk is unable to drop them off at a Town Center or Ox Cart. The resources are therefore lost to the player, the same as when a Gatherer or Dwarf is killed while carrying.
- The various upgrades of the Berserk wear different animal pelts on their head and back.
- In the original game, the Berserk wears a brown wolf pelt, a snow wolf pelt, a brown bear pelt, and a golden bear pelt.
- In Retold, the Berserk wears a young deer pelt, a wolf pelt, a white boar pelt, and a brown bear pelt.
- Ulfsark literally translates to "wolf-shirt", and Berserk to "bear-shirt".
- There are several historical references and ancient artistic depictions of Norse and Germanic warriors wearing wolf and bear skins. References to boar and hog warriors are much less common, and seem to refer to warriors wearing boar-shaped helmets instead of boar skins as in the game.
Bugs[]
- Saving a standard game (such as a random map) as soon as the game starts (before any units could be spawned from the Town Center) then loading that save game will cause the Berserk to have a starting attack value of "0".
- Villagers attacked by such a Berserk will not stop what they are doing and will simply ignore the Berserk, and no damage is dealt.
Gallery[]
