TERA : The Exiled Realm of Arborea

TERA: The Exiled Realm of Arborea

 

 

 

Developer(s): Bluehole Studio (http://www.bluehole.net/english/main.html)

Publisher(s): Ubisoft (http://www.ubi.com/us/),

                   Gameforge (http://corporate.gameforge.com/en/)

 

     TERA is the mmorpg with the groundbreaking combat system where you have the on-screen cursor for targeting instead of the more classical style of TAB targeting. Stunning visuals as an addition to the innovative combat system creates a next-gen mmorpg with a solid storyline of its own.

 

PLOT:

          The story begins in the ancient times where two titans Arun and Shara with their limitless power falls asleep and outcomes the world called TERA with its misteries and conflicts. Dreams create the first wave of "Gods" for Arborea; but the conflict of power is to great for peace and harmony so gods start the war which leads them to an almost certain extinction or imprisonment. Dream of war, creates the image of the second wave inhabitants of Arborea which are to be named "Mortals".

     Now the war is over, gods are no more, leaving a broken world behind with still a lot to recover, heal and pay its respects to predecessors. As these mortals spread all over the land of Arborea; there comes a new threat even before the spirit of the wild is fully healed from beneath the ground itself. A new race called "Argons" with only one purpose and that is to reawaken titans to end their dreams and destroy Arborea for eternity.

     It is up to these "mortal" races to stand together to defend the final frontier against Argons now. Are you up for the challange?

 

RACES:

 

AMAN:

 

     

-Amani are the dragonkins of Arborea.

BARAKA:

 

     

-Baraka is an ancient giant race who have wisdom and intelligence as their core substance.

CASTANIC:

     

-Castanics are the people whose ancestors come from a demonic bloodline.

HIGH ELF:

      

-High Elves are the ones that dictate order and tradition since the dawn of time.

HUMAN:

     

-Humans are the mediocre race of the realm itself.

POPORI:

     

-Popori are the animalistic race of the Arborea wilderness.

ELIN:

     

-Race of a naturalist beings who believe in mother nature and its phenomenon.

 

CLASSES:

LANCER:

     

Role: ABSORPTION TANK (melee)

Armor: Metal Armor (Heavy)

Weapon: Lance

Characteristics:

     Lancers are the impenetrable defenses for the groups in TERA. As the game has two different types of tank classes, lancers are the more "immovable punching bag"s of the two where you are the frontline of the whole combat and prevent anything and everything to pass beyond YOU!

Gameplay:

     Lancers are not as heavy hitters as the other damage dealing classes in the game but with the recent patches lately, they are more balanced into dealing out more damage than they used to. Since there is an innovative combat system, each class has its own active avoidance skill. In this case, it is active block for the lancers.

Active Block

 With the push of a button, lancer goes into an immovable stance raising up its shield to block most of the frontal (conal) attacks. Though this consumes Resolve which is the consumable pool for certain skills.

Indicators

 

Although lancers have lower damage output overall, their survival skills on solo gameplay make up for the lost damage especially managing strong bosses alone where most of the others can`t.

WARRIOR:

     

Role: EVASION TANK, SUSTAINED DAMAGE DEALER (melee)

Armor: Leather Armor (Medium)

Weapon: Twin Swords

Characteristics:

     Warrior is the versatile class among the rest of them. Versatility comes from the different roles it can undertake like no other. Two options are either to be an evasion tank or a sustained melee damage dealer.

Gameplay:

     Unlike lancers, when warriors are played as tank; they rely mostly on evasion rather than absorbing the damage dealt by the target. Warriors have active blocking on their defensive stance but it is sort of a last resort for warrior tanking when every other evasion skill is on cooldown.

Active Evasion

Other than being the evasion tank of the game, warriors are also a very viable sustained melee damage dealers. This is where the assault stance comes into play. Warriors are are the fastest attacking class in the game as well.

Death From Above (Evasion)                               Traverse Cut

                   

As a whole, warriors seems easy enough to play but probably the hardest to master as a class since if you go the tanking path, then that means you are probably gonna jump around like a bunny and avoid most of the direct hits by using your evasion skills; and if you pick the damage dealing path then you won`t have to avoid the boss aggro but still you will be on your toes all the time to avoid the enemies` special area effects cause you will be dealing with them up close and personal.

 SLAYER: 

     

 Role: BURST DAMAGE DEALER (melee)

 Armor: Leather Armor (Medium)

 Weapon: Greatsword

 Characteristics:

     Slayers are the burst melee damage dealers wearing leather armor with less evasions skills then a warrior. They are good area attacks since the game uses "Non-target battle system" (named by developers); so if you want to feel like you are a massive hazard to the battleground as you enter, slayer might be a good choice for you.

Gameplay:

     Althought they carry a massive greatsword that they can swing around on the battlefield, they are not the most durable class when it comes down to defensive skills due to leather armor. Trick is to going in with a bang, get the kill and run out as fast as possible relying on the big burst coming out of the greatsword.

Slayer Greatsword

Slayers rely on mana to be able to use special attacks on consume. Difference on this mechanic compared to most of the other classes is that slayers start off with no mana stacked up before the fight. And as they use their basic attack skills, their mana bar starts to fill up. As the meter fills, skills become available consuming this mana. Harder the special skill hits, the more mana consumption it requires.

 Slayer Mana Refill

BERSERKER: 

     

 Role: BURST DAMAGE DEALER (melee)

 Armor: Metal Armor (Heavy)

 Weapon: Greataxe

 Characteristics:

      Berserkers are similar to slayers offensive-wise. Compared to damage output, berserkers have bigger criticals on single hits than slayers. Though due to wearing heavy armor and having active block ability like lancers instead of any type of evasion skills, they are a bit better on the survival side on the battlefield. In some cases they can be used as Off-tanks as well regarding the situation.

Gameplay:

     Mechanics for skill execution works as the same way as slayers do. Again there is the Mana Bar and to be able to use special skills, first you need to start attacking with your basic attack to stack up some mana. Later on you use this stored mana to execute devastating attacks. Berserkers have a charge skill mechanic in their arsenal as well.  The way it works is "Hold & Release". First you get enough mana to excecute; and then once you have enough, you hold the button for that special skill untill it charges up and then release it to burst out immense amount of damage.

Charged Attack

Though unlike lancers, since berserkers dont equip a shield and they have this massive greataxe instead; they do their active block using this weapon.

Active Block

 If you want the balanced combination of both offense and defense on the battlefield, berserker is a good option due to wearing heavy armor and using a greataxe for the damage output.

SORCERER: 

     

 Role: BURST DAMAGE DEALER (ranged)

 Armor: Cloth Armor (Light)

 Weapon: Disc

 Characteristics:

     Sorcerer as anybody can guess is the master of long range combat with a very high damage output. Even though TERA is all about keep moving on the battlefield throughout the entire combat, sorcerer has the advantage of its range to be a bit more lazy then rest of the others in the party.

Gameplay:

     Close combat classes are all about the combat mechanics that takes place in arms reach towards the target. But when it comes to range classes, things get a bit more fun since you get to care less about AoE (area of effect) spells and focus more on the damage dealing.

When it comes down to evasion skills, sorcerers have one primary and two supplementary skills. Primary one is called teleport jaunt. It works as a blink skill where you can teleport a short distance to get out of harms way.

Sorcerer Teleport

Unlike the teleport where the movement path is forward, the second skill is called backstep. This skill covers a shorter distance and movement path is backwards where you simply step back to avoid short distance frontal attacks.

Backstep

Third and final evasion skill is called glacial retreat. This skill works similar as backstep but instead of doing a simple backstep movement, sorcerer jumps back while freezes the ground in front of her. It is a very situational skill where you use it mostly to get away from an enemy unit and buy time to retreat by slowing it down in the meanwhile.

Glacial Retreat

Sorcerer is a good choice if you basically like magic and range classes with a lot of spell power and situational crowd control skills.

ARCHER: 

     

 Role: DAMAGE DEALER (ranged)

 Armor: Leather Armor (Medium)

 Weapon: Bow

 Characteristics:

     Archer is the other main range damage class in TERA. Compared to sorcerers, archers have to be at a certain optimum amount of distance. They can still hit the target and damage it even if it is out of the optimum distance zone. But to get the most out of the maximum damage, distance to the target plays a very important role.

Gameplay:

Archer is very fun to play due to its crowd controls and AoE skills. The combat system doesn`t limit the number of target you can engage at once but even then, archer is capable of attacking more than one target and hit them hard as well with certain archery skills. Evasion skill is called backstep just like sorcerer`s.

Archer Backstep

If the class you are looking for is the AoE skills with a lot of crowd control (CC) skills, then it would be a good idea to try out the archer.

 

PRIEST: 

   

 Role: PRIMARY HEALER (ranged)

 Armor: Cloth Armor (Light)

 Weapon: Staff

 Characteristics:

      Priest is the main healing class of TERA. It is as classic as a healer gets. Class itself has all that you can imagine in his arsenal. Single heals, group heals, cleanse skills and anything else you can think of. It is all about healing and keeping your party up and running.

Gameplay:

Priest relies on group heals more than anything else. Since TERA is all about innovative new combat system, it gets a bit harder on the healing side then any regular mmo. Trick is to keep moving with the group and make sure they are always within your reach. Main mechanic for group healing is that priest drops a circle of regeneration on the ground mostly which is supposed to be targeted on the group it is intended to heal and make sure most if not all group members that require healing stands inside.

Restorative Burst (Group Healing)

If you love everything about pure healing for instance and raid parties in mmos, priest is the perfect choice for the role since they are the only ones who are dedicated on healing enough.

MYSTIC: 

   

 Role: SUPPORT HEALER (ranged)

 Armor: Cloth Armor (Light)

 Weapon: Scepter

 Characteristics:

     Mystic is the only support class in game that can multitask on more than one aspect. First of all they can heal but compared to priest, mystic is more attuned towards single target heals. They can heal good enough for the end game content like priests but they are much harder to play since its not only about healing for mystics. Priest use skills on area based spells where mystic is more towards targeted skill-based. It can still heal and support multi targets but a mystic has to target them first before executing the spell.

Mystic Group Heal

 Mystic has a unique spell mechanic called Motes. Motes are crystal spheres which come in two different colors. Blue one is for mana regeneration and red one is for health regeneration. Mystic can drop these motes anytime and anywhere so that the group members or mystic herself can pick them up according to its need.

Mystic Mote(s)

To be fair, mystic is not the class for everyone since it is quite hard to get the perfection of skills. But if you are willing to dedicate yourself in a more challenging healer/support class, there is nothing better than playing a mystic to test out your limits.