Albus Bernstein

Lilly Love (Adoptive Guardian)

Silver Lining Bar (Residence)

VHPD (Frequent Allies)

**Albus Bernstein** is the main protagonist of Troubleshooter and the founder of his own company. Having lost his parents at a young age to a terrible disaster 10 years ago, he becomes a Troubleshooter in order to find out the truth behind the incident.

## Appearance

Albus is a young man with short, jet-black hair and green eyes who wears predominantly black attire, including black pants, gloves, and a button-up jacket with white-striped blue cuffs and red rope coiled around his right shoulder.

His weapon of choice is a longsword that he wields with a one-handed style.

## Personality

Albus' personality is partially determined by player choices, but he is otherwise consistently optimistic, idealistic, honest, and a workaholic.

Unpleasant news and unfavorable situations do little to keep him from thinking of his next move, and he is unafraid to speak his mind. His idealism, however, tends to put him at odds with the older and more jaded characters he interacts with and often lands him in needless trouble. Nevertheless, he has no qualms with putting himself in more danger if it means he can help more people, and in spite of his end goal, he takes his work and the safety of others very seriously, striving to be an ideal Troubleshooter.

## Background

Albus was raised in the Yggdrasil District of Valhalla by his guardian, Aunt Lily. He eventually began his training as a Troubleshooter a few years prior to the game's start, working as an intern at the Troubleshooter company, Black Pearl, and then working under Arwall to finish his apprenticeship.

## Combat

#### **Swordsman**

Albus' starting class boasts a good balance of Attack Power and Defense with access to a variety of melee playstyles. His abilities can be tailored towards counterattacks, blocking, inflicting bleed, Action Time manipulation, or a combination of them.

**Pros**

* Company owner (does not need to be paid regularly).
* Licensed Troubleshooter (can put districts under jurisdiction to gain their bonuses).
* Balanced Attack and Defenses.
* Versatile Wind abilities and powerful single-target abilities.
* Excellent synergy with counterattack and chain attack Masteries.
* Access to a variety of Action Time reducing Masteries and sets.
* High base Attack, Speed, and Block and Evade chance.

**Cons**

* Limited ranged options.
* Wind damage is ineffective against heavy Machines.
* Lacks physical area-of-effect attacks.
* Lacking in hybrid scaling early on.
* Additional attacks triggered by Bladestorm do not gain the benefits of Masteries affecting triggered attacks, such as Action Time reduction.
* Slow SP gain when focusing on sword attacks unless using the **Roar of Victory** and **Blood Wind** sets.

#### **Great Swordsman (Advanced)**

An advanced class that expands on the **Swordsman**'s base abilities by granting access to a stronger bleed, blocking penetration, and increased melee longevity, while sacrificing the ESP potential of the **Magic Knight**.

**Pros**

* Significantly increase the chance of inflicting **Bleeding** while also improving it to **Severe** **Bleeding**.
* Increase the chance of activating Bladestorm, especially if the target is bleeding.
* Greatly reduce the effectiveness of an enemy's ability to Block attacks.
* Inflict **Armorbreak**, making targets more vulnerable to all attacks.
* Increased healing when attacking Bleeding enemies.
* Can further decrease Action Time from blocking and further increase enemy Action Times when they block his attacks.
* High damage reduction, especially against melee attacks.
* Higher base Attack, Speed, Armor, and Block and Evade chance.

**Cons**

* Healing is dependent on enemies already being afflicted with Bleed.
* Being capable of one-shotting enemies can make Masteries reliant on slaying or attacking Bleeding enemies moot.
* Focus on melee combat limits the effectiveness of Wind damage abilities.
* Lacks Vigor regeneration options.
* Bleeding focused Masteries are completely ineffective against Machines.
* Vulnerable to ranged focus fire.

#### **Magic Knight (Advanced)**

An advanced class of the **Swordsman** that is a damage hybrid of sword and magic, it boasts higher overall offensive power and sustain, but lacks the penetration abilities of the **Great Swordsman**.

**Pros**

* Higher raw damage potential from hybrid scaling abilities.
* The Magic Sword class mastery increases ESP critical damage by 9% of your physical atk stat, that combined with Sword Manual can raise your critical damage above 300% striking fear into the hearts of all who oppose you!

* Raising physical attack grants scaling bonuses to ESP attacks and vice versa.
* Improved self healing and sustain.
* Decent damage reduction, especially against criminals
* Access to **Elementalist** masteries, including Vigor recovery.
* Higher base ESP and Resistance.

**Cons**

* Enemies with high Armor and/or Resistance can significantly reduce his damage and healing output.
* More vulnerable to damage overall, especially against Machines.
* Lower base Block and Evade chance.

#### **Personal Mastery**

* **Wind Sword** - 10% bonus damage to Slash and Wind attacks.
* **Responsibility** - Reduces Albus' Action Timer by 20 if an enemy dodges or blocks his attack.
* **Opportunist** - Dodging or blocking an attack grants Albus a buff that grants Speed, Hit Chance %, Critical Hit Chance %, and Attack % based on his level (max benefit at level 10).

## Trivia

* Don Bruce refers to Albus' mother as Sister (Korean: Unni) and Albus' dad as Big Brother (Korean: Hyung) as a sign of respect, not family, similar to how Sion addresses Heixing.