Hello again, TERA Fans! This weekend, over 20,000 gamers were able to test TERA during the Korean Stress test. Of course, only a fraction of those players speak English, but the ones who do have been really great about giving the Western TERA community their opinion of the game thus far.
The Italian guild,
Renegade Angles Clan, was awesome enough to write up a few class reviews for us based on their experiences in the Korean stress test! They've sent me five reviews in total, detailing the gameplay experience of a sorcerer, berserker, mystic, lancer, and slayer.
Check out the reviews below and learn more about the Renegade Angles Clan at
http://www.raclan.mmoguildsites.com.
Lancer
Written by Renegade Angles Clan member Areston
Welcome! After spending some time with TERA, I'd like to give my opinion about the Lancer class!
At level 1 we have only two skills, the basic combo (which is divided into 3 attacks) and the parry (activated by C on default settings).
The
combo skill consists of three attacks. The first 2 hits inflict damage and the third push back the target by 1-2 meters and inflict more damage. The attacks hit the enemy even when it is knocked down. Each attack recharges a bit of mana.
The
parry skill is used often due to the low character speed in combat. Once you press the C key, the lancer will block all frontal hits. The parry blocks 100% damage. To activate the parry consumes a small amount of mana, but you can remain in the stance without consuming any mana.
As already mentioned, the character is very slow in combat even though the attacks are quite fast: there is a fraction of a second between attacks which is useful to set up the parry skill.
At level 3 we learn our first CC. Using this skill makes your character do a double twirl. The first twirl does low damage, but stuns for 2-3 seconds or causes knockback (rare). The second attack is a 360 degree twirl which does more damage.
The next skill is very powerful and is the first skill you can "mix" in the combo system. This skill has a charging time of about 2 seconds, the character jumps and charges, after which the character will strike moving forward for 1-2 meters in the air. This skill is the most powerful that I had, and it can also stun the target.
As I said we can mix this skill to create a combo, and after the basic 3 hit combo, we can press the spacebar to use a power attack. Doing so removes the 2 seconds of cast time the skill would normally have. We can have the same effect mixing this skill with the 2 twists.
At level 8 we learn the famous
Charge skill. To use this skil, you must be 7-8 meters away from your emnemy. If you attempt to use it in melee range, the skill will not activate. In PvP it is kinda bugged, it pierces the body of all classes except the sorcerer (only on them it works as it should). However, this might be because of high ping.
The charge is also used as a running skill because we can travel as much as 7-8 meters instantly.
At level 12 we learn a usefull skill that we can use only when we are in the knockback status. Pressing the space bar when knocked down will cause the character to stand up, hitting enemies around him. This skill also has the potential to knockback the opponent (it seems that all melee classes have this skill).
At level 14 we learn our first healing skill (512 hp), the casting time of this skill is 0 (instant) and the cooldown is 1 minute.
At level 18 we learn our first aggro building skill. I believe it is an AoE skill, but I have not been able to test it yet.
PvE
When it comes to PvE, the lancer is a wonderful class. It takes some time to kill monsters but if we use our skills they go down quite fast. At the beginning minions are quite annoying, however after level 12 we won't have any more problems because of our new skills.
PvP
In PvP, the Lancer is a very difficult class to play and fights always take a lot of time.
I fought several PvP fights.
- I had 4 fights against Berserkers (1 level less than me) and they always ended in a tie even if I always ended with more HP than my opponent (except once when we finished with both 60% of HP). Our advantage against berserkers is that they don't have mana
regeneration so they cannot always use their skills.
- I had the greatest difficulty figthing against Slayers. I lost 2 fights out of 2. Slayers don't have mana regeneration, just like Berserker, but I didn't understand how to face this class.
- Fighting against a warrior I had a lot of fun and I won (22% hp vs 0%). We must try to keep him in front of us and parry his hits, keep distance and try to strike him down with our bigger range.
- Fighting against Sorcerers, I had two great victories (75%-0% and 85%-0%) because we can parry spells that come from the front. However, we will take some AoE damage. It is possible to use "charge" on them while they are running away and do a lot of damage.
General Info
The lance and shield are one entity. They are not interchangeable. Lancers have high HP(I had 2300hp at about level 6; at level 14 I had 4000hp) and I never had problems with mana, since you can regenerate MP with both normal hits and natural regeneration.
Berserker
Written by Renegade Angles Clan member Jake
The first character I created was an Aman Berseker.
The first thing I noticed was how light yet beatiful the graphics are. I had absolutely no problems playing on a 3 year old laptop.
About the class: the berseker is a heavy defense and heavy hitter, but it has a lower movement and attack speed than other classes. Bersekers have to pick the best position first and only then unleash their smashing attacks. Strength is nothing without control!
After you create your character, you will have two skills: combo and parry. The combo skill is a succession of four heavy hits: the first one is a forward slash, that has to be aimed carefully, the next two have a larger area of effect (you still have to mind your crosshair), the last hit is again a forward slash, but this time with even more power. Every hit generates a lot of mana (around 10%). The more targets you hit, the more mana you generate.
The Berseker loses mana every second, and has no natural mana regeneration. Using the initial combo attack is the only way to generate mana. Later on you'll learn a skill that generates 100 mp every 30 seconds, but that's a pretty low amount and you will still have to use your combo skill.
The parry skill is very useful, however you should use it only when you can't do anything else, because it blocks only 75% of the incoming damage and activating it requires a fair amount of mana. It's surely better to just dodge enemy's attacks if possible, and run around your opponents.
The first attack skill you'll get is Whirlwind. It's a chargeable, 360 degree AoE attack. If fully charged, it causes a lot of damage, and can wipe out a group of reap mobs in almost no time, while having a fair MP cost and a 4 seconds cooldown. If you just press the hotkey without holding it down, it's a istant skill that does low AoE damage.
Later on you'll get two heavy hitting skills, which shatter the earth and cause a ton of damage. The difference between the two skills is that one is chargeable, which if charged does almost the same damage as the other one, and has a significantly lower mana cost. While you're charging this skill you can also turn around and aim your target. It is best to consider each situation and choose the best skill to use at all times.
As all melee classes, the berseker has an attack which can be only used while being knocked down. It is very useful, as it does a nice amount of damage and knocks down opponents at 360 degrees. After using this skill it's advisable to use a heavy hitting skill that will almost surely hit the enemy.
The strong features of this class are its heavy defense and its strong hits. However some players might find frustrating to have a very small area of attack, and to miss sometimes.
Mystic
Written by Renegade Angles Clan member Jake
My second character was a Baraka Mystic.
Even if the Baraka is a huge and heavy race, its movements are as fluid as other races. When he's idling, it seems that he's drawing some runes in the air, just awesome.
The mystic is a healer/buffer/summoner hybrid, it also has some fairly powerful attack skills and a dodge. It is a good all-round class.
The character starts with two skills: the first one is an energy ball, which does fair damage and has a low casting time and mana usage. The second skill creates a "life orb" that you can pick up from the ground and is used on pickup. With this skill you can recover around 40% of your HP. These "life orbs" are also sometimes dropped by mobs.
Aiming is no big deal: the spell doesnt just go straight, but it curves and follows the mob that you had in your crosshair. This is not always a good thing, as sometimes you get to hit an unwanted monster that was in between you and your target.
Soon enough you'll get two attack skills, one of these creates a 180 degrees shockwave in front of you, very useful to defeat reap mobs. The second one does more damage, but hits a smaller area and has a longer casting time. Both of these skills have a very short range.
Mana is usually not a problem: the mystic has a mana regenerating skill which generates 100 mp every second and has 30 second cooldown. This skill is very useful when you're in trouble.
You also get your first pet very early: this is a tank pet, and tanking is its ONLY goal. This pet draws a lot of aggro, has a lot of HP and does very low damage (almost null). I had the impression that it has very low defense and takes a lot of damage. The summon lasts for a bit more than two minutes and has a cooldown of two minutes, so it's possible to always have a pet unless it dies. Also it doesn't need to be controlled, it attacks the last target that you hit. This isn't a problem, though, the AI is very good.
Another really good skill is the istant forward teleport, useful for any situation: PvP and farm for dodging and also for faster movement speed.
I didnt have any real problems with this class: it's kinda easy to kill mobs and with your skills you can regenerate HP and MP really easily. The pet looks useful for blocking the enemy in PvP, and dodging the enemy attacks is no big deal. Later on you'll get a 90% AoE slow too.
All around it's a very powerful class, useful for any purpose, recommended to anyone.
Slayer
Written by Renegade Angles Clan member Allalon
I played a castanic slayer.
The slayer is a very versatile class, perfect for DPS. Anyone who wants to grind anything without being too debilitated by movement might find it the ideal class.
The slayer's attacks are very heavy and powerful. Every slash makes the character fall backwards, however it is still a very agile class since you have dodging skills. I have to say that the game physics looks really good: the sword feels really heavy, just like you have it in your hands. You can feel the power of your hits and really feel like you're in the game. Unleashing your sword and swinging it takes about one second, just like it would if you had one in your hands. If you were a half demon with horns on your head, of course.
I was very shocked by another positive feature of the game: I was able to knock down my target every 3-4 hits, monster or player. While trying to PVP against a level 8 Mystic while I was only level 4, I managed to bring it to 44% of life thanks to these knockdowns, almost keeping him down all the time.
And yeah, this class has negative aspects. Some people pointed out that compared to the berseker, slayer was better in everything. That's not true. Slayers wear light armor and usually receives a lot of damage, while bersekers can stand stronger hits. Also the Slayer has no blocking skills, just evasion. This is a disadvantage when you're fighting bosses with huge AoE skills, where your evade skills arent useful everytime.
Also because of your sword's weight it is sometime hard to follow some monster movements.
It must be said that they usually dodge, counterattack, and generally move around a lot, and their skill increases with each level up. With your low in-combat movement speed, you have to predict their movements, and not just spam these attack skills. However, the range of your sword is huge, and really helps in combat. Most of the shots will still hit the target.
Slayer's skills are generally very powerful. However, in order to use them, you have to gain mana: in fact, you have no natural mana regeneration, and your only way to gain MP is using your normal combo skill. At higher levels you get a skill that instantly heals you 100 MP, however the most of the mana will still come from the combo skill.
Beginning at level 20, you will learn skills from a specialized trainer. These are much more powerful than the previous ones, and really makes this class worth to play.
Overall, this class is for everyone who wants to make a strong DPS while keeping a high agility.
Sorcerer
Written by Renegade Angles Clan member Ulquiorraz
Here I am, ready to describe my first experience as a sorceror in TERA!
The sorceror has very powerful skills even at level 1. The starter skills are a single target fireball with a 15 meter range, and a short range AoE called flame column which does high damage.
Many players are worried about having difficulties in aiming and personally I haven't found any of these issues, though you may have to get used to it at first. Aiming is really easy: if you look at the photos above, you can see that when a target is in range, the reticle will become bigger: that means you can hit the hotkey and unleash the fire!
With every level up you gain more and more skills, and all of them do VERY high damage. Most of them at lower levels hit only a single target, only one does considerable AoE damage.
Every skill has a different range and special tricks to use it, new players might find this difficult at first, and often you'll find your hits vanishing in the air right one step before your foe. However, near the reticle you should see a distance meter, which is really useful for checking before using these powerful-if-used-well spells of death!
4 skills out of 6 were linked together in a combo. The fact of the matter is, you have to be really careful and always know which skill to use in every situation. Hitting the combo hotkey might not be always the best solution.
About PvP, the first duels were all about a hit and run because of the initial lack of crowd control skills. (I guess
initial only)
The rest is yet to be discovered, but I found that the sorceror is a easy to play, hard to master class. It will amaze a lot of players, however, not all of them will unlock its full potential.
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