2e:Rage Bearer

Channeling their power into physical strength and intuitive, primordial magic, rage bearers harness their roiling emotions as a powerful tool in battle. The burning spirit of a rage bearer is a beacon to gravs, even in the heat of battle, and few others can harness the power of the spirits in as visceral and potent a fashion as members of this class. Despite their name, and the common conception of rage bearers as wild, wrathful warriors, anger is far from their only driving emotion - but for those who threaten them, it is by far the most likely to rise to the surface. And woe to those, then, who stand in the rage bearer's way.

How to play a Rage Bearer
Rage Bearers are, as the name might suggest, a very aggressive class. Their role in the team is that of a powerful and versatile damage dealer. Sporting options for all ranges if they so desire and for both single-target and area damage, Rage Bearers are well-suited to tackle most enemy formations, and First Strike helps improve their chances of acting before the enemies and decimating their ranks before they have a chance to become a threat.

The nature of their Thrill of Battle passive and its associated Adrenaline mechanic means they are at their best when constantly taking down enemies. Extremely mobile and with some of the best raw Armor in the game once Adrenaline gets going, Rage Bearers are an offensive force to be reckoned with if allowed to rampage unchecked.

They are not without their flaws, though. This hyper-specialization on raw offense and personal survival leaves them with relatively few options of other sorts to offer support or utility to the team, and most of the options they do have are still offensive in nature, just in the interest of improving team offense in addition to their own. Furthermore, they have no inherent methods within their class for regenerating Vitality or Gravitas, as their methods (high Armor, paying for abilities with Adrenaline, etc) are about prevention rather than cure, and if they are unable to sustain themselves on prevention alone, they will need allied support to fix that. They can be very tough once they get going, but "once they get going" is the important clause, and they’re still not immortal, so Rage Bearers should still be mindful about getting in over their head without the support of their team.

How to hybridize a Rage Bearer
Rage Bearers are fairly simple to work with as a Hybrid component class, in large part due to their exceptional base stats (possibly the best in the game, depending on how you value Capacity against Movement), straightforward focus as a class, and lack of abilities that require a specific Basic in order to function. They serve somewhat better as the primary class in a Hybrid partially due to generally having better base stats than the other component, but more pressingly because Rage Bearer has three broadly useful Basic passives and as a secondary class it is limited to only choosing one. Rage Bearer secondaries must take Rage Strike as one of their two Rage Bearer Basics due to the one Basic passive limit on the secondary class.

Rage Bearer benefits classes that want to improve their damage dealing capabilities, whether as a primary role or as a nasty back-pocket trick. Nobody expects the party Gravimancer to suddenly pull a triple-Gold attack out of nowhere when the situation calls for it, after all. To a lesser degree, it also benefits already-offensive builds that need some help in terms of durability or Size management, as Thrill of Battle can lessen the burden on both as an inherent part of doing the damage dealer job.

In turn, Rage Bearer benefits from classes that can either further amplify its offense (Wild Magic from Primal, Vigilance from Shield Mother, Hawkeye from Predator, etc) or can offer it the Vitality and Gravitas sustain the class inherently lacks on its own (Heavy Breathing from Shield Mother, Evocation from Primal, etc). Do be mindful that Adrenaline charges can only be used on Rage Bearer actives, though, not on those belonging to the other class of the Hybrid.

Attribute Advances
Any maiesta can purchase the following abilities. Additionally, they gain one of their choice for free upon reaching thresholds of 200, 500, 1000, and 2000 total XP spent on advances.

Basic Abilities
The rage bearer begins the game with these abilities, without requiring the expenditure of any XP.

Novice Abilities
Any rage bearer can purchase the following abilities.