September 25, 2010
Lancer Column: Lance and Board
Lance and board. Doesn’t quite sound right does it?
A little information to start what will hopefully be a series of successful Lancer columns. As I haven’t been lucky enough to be in any of the FGTs (big hint to anyone in a position of power who reads this ;D), these columns will be largely made up of pure speculation and my opinions on articles I’ve read or videos I’ve seen. Until I get to try the game out for myself, that is.
---
What attracted me, personally, to the Lancer class were a few simple points. Heavy armour, fun gameplay mechanics, and a button for raising one’s shield. I realise the last point was more of a TERA mechanic as opposed to a Lancer mechanic, but it boils down to the one reason I always shied away from tank classes in previous MMOs I’ve played – interaction. I’ll use World of Warcraft as a basic example. In a nutshell, tanking in WoW consists mainly of standing still in front of the enemy with one eye on one’s health and one eye on one’s threat meter. With some exceptions, what the enemy itself is doing is largely unimportant so long as you keep oneself at the top of its threat list. The Lancer can’t do that. The Lancer needs to stand between the enemy and allies to use the shield to block attacks from reaching allies. The Lancer needs to actually press and hold a button to execute said block. The Lancer doesn’t stack a blocking stat and pray to the rng Gods that a portion of incoming damage is reduced.
Interaction. The one thing that tanking has lacked thus far in MMOs. The act of actually physically blocking attacks from reaching allies just gives that much more weight to the word “tank”. PvP is also a factor in my decision to play a Lancer in TERA when I mostly played as dps in other MMOs. It’s entirely possible, and sometimes the best thing to do, to just bypass a tank completely and ignore them until you’ve managed to beat down the squishies providing backup for the tank. With the collision detecting preventing enemies from running right through you, in theory it should be entirely possible for a Lancer and allies to command control of a choke point such as a bridge. With the lancer standing on the bridge or a mountain pass, shield raised, and said allies staying back a little to heal the Lancer and attack the enemies. With good coordination between the players, a choke point such as this could decide the outcome of the PvP encounter. A shield used for shielding.
This raises a very important question in my mind – race selection. Presumably the larger races such as Aman will have a larger hit box, resulting in an easier time in blocking attacks from reaching allies, or blocking enemies from passing the Lancer at a choke point. Not to say that the smaller races just won’t be able to do any of this. Will it be easier for larger races? Will the shield hit box be the same size for each character? This is highly unlikely, and it could possibly mean that for certain points in the game, a Lancer will have a restricted choice of race. Honestly, I can’t imagine a Popori Lancer having the same size shield hit box as an Aman Lancer.
Then we come to the Lancer’s role in parties. Up until now, I’ve only been talking as if Lancers were only viable as tanks. This is not necessarily true. With proper gearing and (very heavy on the assumptions here) speccing, Lancers might well be able to output some proper dps numbers. Mostly for PvP and solo content, of course, but with good enough reactions it could be possible for a Lancer to do extra dps in PvE by sacrificing some tank-like stats. This may strike some of you as an odd thing to do, but with TERA’s heavy emphasis on reacting to enemy attacks and raising your shield in time, or even moving out of the attack’s area of effect altogether, Lancers may end up as quite the dps boost to the party. Imagine this – you’re PvPing and you see a Lancer heading your way. Your party is occupied elsewhere, so is the Lancer’s. It’s common knowledge that tanks generally don’t do much damage, so you figure that you could prevent the Lancer’s advance for a while to give your party a chance to catch up to you for backup. The Lancer blocks one of your attacks which is followed by Riposte. Suddenly, Crash Gear then Shield Bash. You’re stunned and have reduced armour. The Lancer’s doing a lot more damage than you first anticipated. You try to run away to get some breathing room and think about what to do next. The Lancer charges. You try to run again? Noose.
Not only could play like this do quite a decent amount of damage, but coming from someone that’s supposed to be a tank? It may well leave a lot of players disorientated; damage and ferocity unexpected from a tank. Even with gearing for damage output, with good reactions and anticipation of what other people will do it such situations, a skilled Lancer could be a very formidable opponent.
This column feels a little too technical to me. I'll try to break up the next one if I can. Let me know what you think.
To me, this opportunity is as much a learning experience as it is about sharing my opinions and experiences with the community. Maybe I said something outrageous; maybe I said something completely wrong, any feedback is good feedback. The more feedback I receive then the more I can better myself and better my columns.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Peace out.
~x
A little information to start what will hopefully be a series of successful Lancer columns. As I haven’t been lucky enough to be in any of the FGTs (big hint to anyone in a position of power who reads this ;D), these columns will be largely made up of pure speculation and my opinions on articles I’ve read or videos I’ve seen. Until I get to try the game out for myself, that is.
---
What attracted me, personally, to the Lancer class were a few simple points. Heavy armour, fun gameplay mechanics, and a button for raising one’s shield. I realise the last point was more of a TERA mechanic as opposed to a Lancer mechanic, but it boils down to the one reason I always shied away from tank classes in previous MMOs I’ve played – interaction. I’ll use World of Warcraft as a basic example. In a nutshell, tanking in WoW consists mainly of standing still in front of the enemy with one eye on one’s health and one eye on one’s threat meter. With some exceptions, what the enemy itself is doing is largely unimportant so long as you keep oneself at the top of its threat list. The Lancer can’t do that. The Lancer needs to stand between the enemy and allies to use the shield to block attacks from reaching allies. The Lancer needs to actually press and hold a button to execute said block. The Lancer doesn’t stack a blocking stat and pray to the rng Gods that a portion of incoming damage is reduced.
Interaction. The one thing that tanking has lacked thus far in MMOs. The act of actually physically blocking attacks from reaching allies just gives that much more weight to the word “tank”. PvP is also a factor in my decision to play a Lancer in TERA when I mostly played as dps in other MMOs. It’s entirely possible, and sometimes the best thing to do, to just bypass a tank completely and ignore them until you’ve managed to beat down the squishies providing backup for the tank. With the collision detecting preventing enemies from running right through you, in theory it should be entirely possible for a Lancer and allies to command control of a choke point such as a bridge. With the lancer standing on the bridge or a mountain pass, shield raised, and said allies staying back a little to heal the Lancer and attack the enemies. With good coordination between the players, a choke point such as this could decide the outcome of the PvP encounter. A shield used for shielding.
This raises a very important question in my mind – race selection. Presumably the larger races such as Aman will have a larger hit box, resulting in an easier time in blocking attacks from reaching allies, or blocking enemies from passing the Lancer at a choke point. Not to say that the smaller races just won’t be able to do any of this. Will it be easier for larger races? Will the shield hit box be the same size for each character? This is highly unlikely, and it could possibly mean that for certain points in the game, a Lancer will have a restricted choice of race. Honestly, I can’t imagine a Popori Lancer having the same size shield hit box as an Aman Lancer.
Then we come to the Lancer’s role in parties. Up until now, I’ve only been talking as if Lancers were only viable as tanks. This is not necessarily true. With proper gearing and (very heavy on the assumptions here) speccing, Lancers might well be able to output some proper dps numbers. Mostly for PvP and solo content, of course, but with good enough reactions it could be possible for a Lancer to do extra dps in PvE by sacrificing some tank-like stats. This may strike some of you as an odd thing to do, but with TERA’s heavy emphasis on reacting to enemy attacks and raising your shield in time, or even moving out of the attack’s area of effect altogether, Lancers may end up as quite the dps boost to the party. Imagine this – you’re PvPing and you see a Lancer heading your way. Your party is occupied elsewhere, so is the Lancer’s. It’s common knowledge that tanks generally don’t do much damage, so you figure that you could prevent the Lancer’s advance for a while to give your party a chance to catch up to you for backup. The Lancer blocks one of your attacks which is followed by Riposte. Suddenly, Crash Gear then Shield Bash. You’re stunned and have reduced armour. The Lancer’s doing a lot more damage than you first anticipated. You try to run away to get some breathing room and think about what to do next. The Lancer charges. You try to run again? Noose.
Not only could play like this do quite a decent amount of damage, but coming from someone that’s supposed to be a tank? It may well leave a lot of players disorientated; damage and ferocity unexpected from a tank. Even with gearing for damage output, with good reactions and anticipation of what other people will do it such situations, a skilled Lancer could be a very formidable opponent.
This column feels a little too technical to me. I'll try to break up the next one if I can. Let me know what you think.
To me, this opportunity is as much a learning experience as it is about sharing my opinions and experiences with the community. Maybe I said something outrageous; maybe I said something completely wrong, any feedback is good feedback. The more feedback I receive then the more I can better myself and better my columns.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Peace out.
~x
Filed by TERA Fans News at 2:40 pm under Uncategorized Tagged Allies, Armour, dps, Exceptions, Fun, Game, Health, Interaction, Mechanic, Mechanics, Mmos, Nutshell, One Reason, Pvp, Speculation, Squishies, Stack, Stat, Word Tank, World Of Warcraft
No Comments
4 Comments
Secured by