Fane HM Recap

Ok Ok I've neglected my blog for like a week =/.  I didn't mean it my core gaming group all ditched Tera for Diablo 3 I caved and actually bought it.  Never plated a diablo game previously and I did find it rather addicting so far however atm 2/3's through Act 2 Inferno I'm loosing interest. 

Anyway back in the land of Tera.

I finally got all my t12 gear and ran my first Hard Mode yesterday.

Hard Mode Fane is actually very easy especially since I ran w/ an outstanding group.  There are really only a couple things to pay attention to.  The first is there are only four pillars to break to keep you from dieing to the giant aoe thing the guy that jumps off the tower does.  There is no emote to give you a heads up.  You must kill the boss before his 5th jump.  It is imperative that you break the pillars in time or you will wipe.

The crab room has 4 spikes on either side of the room (north and south).  There is no emote for the blood bores so you must watch for when they start spinning and always keep the crab between u and the side the spikes are coming out of or guess what you're dead.

The final boss is pretty much the same he hits a little harder and you have something like 14 minutes to kill him in.  Just watch for his spin and which corner the snake head is in.  

Thanks to my group for taking me on my first run through.

Cash Shop

EME announced Premium Services and Novelty Items that would now be available for purchase.  I have mixed feelings about this.

While I agree there should be a fee for server transfers (guessing will be added after this month) and name changes.  I think things that modify your character cosmetically should not be cash based.  I do not want this to turn into a f2p cash shop driven mmo.  

I feel that if you paid for the game up front and are now paying a subscription there should be very minimal rl cash cost outside of that.  

The items currently available in the cash shop do not really make it a cash shop yet.  There is basically race/gender/appearance/name changes and a set of weapon skins.  I would consider the weapon skins a bit on the expensive side for not being account based.   

On the upside none of the items are game changing which make them strictly superfluous and as long as they stay that way I'm happy.

Loot Rules

So after an interesting Fane run yesterday; I wanted to talk about Loot Rules.


Loot Rule Basics
Free For All - Anyone can pick up anything first come first serve
Round Robin - Loot is awarded in sequence to each party member


Exceptions: 
Superior - Gold Items
Rare - Blue
Uncommon - Green


Roll - manually click the roll option which also allows you to not roll at all if you do not need it
Random - the game rolls automatically for you


Class Specific - If your class can use it you can roll on it if no class in the group can use it anyone can roll on it


Equipment only - you will get the option to roll on all equipment white thru gold


Bind on Pickup - Roll


In the early dungeons you do not find bind on pickup items so it's very common to see Round Robin/Rare - Random/Class all assigned in the loot rules.


Around the 5x dungeons some of the drops become Bind on Pickup so there you will see Rare - Roll on the loot rule tabs.


In the End game dungeons (lvl 60)  it is more and more common to allow everyone to roll on everything rare or better regardless of class since it's rather costly to +9 the t12 enigmatics.  This can cause a lot of confusion.  If the party leader sets the loot table like this be sure to speak up on what pieces of gear you need specifically.  By the time you reached these dungeons we should all be able to be understanding and communicate what we expect from the group.  

Balders Temple Quick Run Through

First boss:


Rather simple dps boss; boss climbs tree; dps tree; rinse repeat.  If you do not dps the tree fast enough your party will wipe.


Second boss: Red or Green/?


Green:
Kuma like standard kuma moves plus he has a roll that can smack you for quite a bit of damage.  There is one kink thrown into the mix on this.  Lines of trees will spawn and march across the courtyard you need to avoid them as.  There are gaps in the line that u can dodge between just avoid the trees and the roll from the boss you'll be fine. (Do not take the mirror after this boss)


Red:
The one has 2 things to be wary of.  If the boss steps into the pool in the middle it will reset.  Also at several points during the fight adds will spawn you have to run them into one of the pools on either side of the stairs and have someone hit the switch to kill them.  You will have to alternate pools.


Third Boss:


Another Kuma like boss same move set as a standard kuma.  The catch on this one is you have to fight him inside a cage basically.  If you leave the cage you get a debuff.  There are several statues around the edge of this cage that will spew out small balls.  A target will be announced that target should move to the outside and dodge them the rest of the group will also have to be dodging but a couple steps back and forth will make it rather easy for them.  You do NOT want to be in the middle of the room.


Test of note:


You will be take to a room w/ an urn.  Breaking it starts a timer and more urns spawn.  One is harder to kill than the rest u have to find it and dps it down.  This happens 3 times just.  


Final Boss:


Crab/dog mechanized thing.  He has quite a few moves 
 - crab walk lazer move is very hard on melee it will take about half their life
 - The boss tosses a part of itself out and fling it around doing minor aoe damage.  
 - a pull that brings everyone underneath him you will need to back out of that asap cause then he belly flops.  
 - Levitate which will avoid melee damage for a short period
 - Random ranged target that will one hit it's target 90% of the time.  It is almost always targeted on a ranged dps or healer. You need to back out of range.


Fight Progression:
 - Blind if it's announced someone is blinded another person will have to activate a mirror there are 2 in the room on opposite sides.  The light will glint of the mirror causing a whiteout and curing the blind.  Not curing blind will make the afflicted persons screen go black slowly. You will have to alternate mirrors.
 - After the blind is issued at the entrance of the room a lever activating the lever will produce a cannon.  The cannon will need to be used when the boss moves to center with a shield on it.  The cannon will knock the boss out of that stance and dps can resume.  If you do not knock the boss it enrages and you will wipe. 
 - DPS Crunch when the boss hits 29% the mirrors will begone and everyone will be afflicted w/ blind.  You must dps the boss down before your screen goes completely black.  If your group doesn't have the dps for that you will not be able to finish this fight.  


Tips: if you have a decent group your healer should be dedicated to the mirror unless they are afflicted in which case a backup should be dedicated.
 a ranged dps should be on the cannon so there is less downtime between dpsing the boss and using the cannon.

Mystic/Priest

So many people are jaded about the mystic or priest heals and which is better in a group.


While a mystic is preferred by most for the extra crit buff at later levels it's only good with a party that is also competent.  They need to rely on their crowd control abilities to cover when something decides to go terribly wrong.  I've found that using as a priest isn't very viable when the shit hits the fan cause no matter how many times when one or 2 people have gotten knocked out someone always wakes the mob back up when i sleep it to rev w/out worrying about the heals or the sleep will just flat out get resisted.  Priest however can heal through much more damage easier with their huge aoe heals.


Mystic balls are amazing i won't lie that mana and hp everywhere is gorgeous but in the early levels they are usually wasted.  I have not had the privilege of mystic healing past the lvl 27 dungeon yet.  I do know that priest was easier and less hands on at those levels. Mystic i seem to always be target healing, dropping balls, trying to give back some mana, jumping in for a damage buff, or running for my life w/ aggro(you know it happens).  My priest in the end game dungeons is going crazy it seems i'm always kiting adds, tossing my dmg buff, my dot/slow, target healing, curing, using my shield and constantly moving.  I'm kind of scared to see how much more i have to do with a mystic in those same dungeons.


Mystics are less able to carry a sub par group through an instance than priests. They only have one target heal the lovely health balls, and a healing fairy which has basic priests skills but they are always targeted around the mystic.  So while it is potentially a party heal it's usually an oh shit button for the mystic.  The more healing that's required the more a priest can handle it better.  A group that doesn't utilize balls is less than optimal for a mystic that's for sure.  The health balls give you a substantial HoT and cure any debuffs.  Since the mystic cure is a lockon 2-target (3 when glyphed) unlike the priests large aoe cure keeping people debuff free can be challenging if they don't use the balls.


Some dps are stubborn and either don't block/dodge well or back out to grab a ball especially at early levels though at later levels if w/ a priest or a mystic they will back out occasionally either to grab a ball or to get a ginormous heal from the priest.  


Too many people only want mystic for their buffs but a mystic is only as good as their group and sometimes worse.  A good priest can heal through a shit storm even if they end up kiting like a boss and still supply a lot of really nice buffs.  There are also a lot of people that just heard mystics were better from KTera and even more that don't understand how either or both classes skills work.  


As a healer if u get stuck with a jerk party just tell them how it is.  They will either listen and cooperate or die cause they are arrogant.  I've had a few arguments over mystic/priest.  I don't say either is better or worse.  Priest is usually safest but mystic can make things go faster if they and their party are competent.

First Week Recap

After a rough Monday the rest of the week ran smoothly with only a couple server hiccups.  They fixed the lack of channel problem fairly quickly so we could quest in somewhat peace.  I say somewhat because those of us w/ infamy either glitched or earned were sorely punished by the community if we didn't stick together.


There were still a few bottlenecks while questing but nothing like in the open beta in Blood Run.  As can be expected the higher your level the more cooperative people are.  I've gotten several random parties cause everyone likes a pocket healer.


INSTANCE MATCHER/DUNGEON EXPERIENCE


One thing I found rather frustrating is the Instance Match Maker.  The design is wonderful the problem is actually the lack of tanks and warriors not being able to queue as tanks.  If they could I think the queues would be shortened drastically.  Any lancer receives an instant queue.


During the week i mostly played my priest i would have to say that some people have a total lack of respect for their party members when using the matchmaking system.  I loaded into a dungeon (golden labyrinth) that was already underway and was instantly met with attitude against random healers by the tank.  The tank was in fact terrible at holding aggro but blamed the healer for everything.  He even tried to vote me from the group when I gave him just as much attitude as he gave me.   At least there is an in game report function.  One other frustrating thing are people that quit just because they die once. It's a dungeon if you aren't 100% on your toes especially in the later instances you will more than likely die.  There are also some boss fights that are 80% skill 20% chance.  


Things to remember when you join a group for dungeons and even bams be up front about loot rules, whether or not you've run the dungeon before and even,  and what you expect from your  group members.   As a healer and with how mobile fights can be it's important to let people know that if they get low health and don't get healed right away they should just back out or kite it's because at the exact opposite of the fight and my heal can't reach you. Trust me it happens.  You also want to dodge as much as possible less damage taken is less stress on the healer which is less stress on the tank to hold aggro off them cause heals are MAJOR aggro stealers.  When I did tank a few dungeons on my warrior it wasn't easy but i did expect my party members to help me keep mobs off the healer we all know that warrior tanks have a lot harder time holding aggro than lancers so a little cooperation from the party is always nice.


Well i guess that's enough rambling for now.