Last night I finally made it into TERA’s first dungeon, the Bastion of Lok. This is a 5-man instance meant for (I believe) levels 20-24. Our run took a little over an hour (no wipes, a couple bio breaks and Stamina recharge sessions).
Our party was a lancer (TERA tank class, run by Scott of Pumping Irony), priest (run by Oakstout), a sorceror (DPS, run by Scopique of Levelcapped), a warrior (DPS, he was a PUG guy) and my Slayer (DPS). Our levels ranged, iirc, from 21-23.
It was a successful run with Scott doing a great job of tanking and Oakstout being a first rate healer. We had 1 death all night, the PUG dude, who (as PUG dudes are apt to do) kind of kept running off to do his own thing. He was gracious about it, though, acknowledging that the death was his own fault.
I had a lot of fun doing the instance though it was more “spectacle” fun than “thoughtful gaming” fun, if you know what I mean. There’s not a lot of nuance playing DPS in a group, or if there is I haven’t gotten good enough to grasp it yet. Basically I was waiting for the tank to get aggro, then unloading with everything I had until I got the little “You’re about to get aggro” icon and backing off. Though that didn’t happen very often since my skill cool downs were enough to moderate damage I guess.
The only “downside” (and that feels like too strong a word) about the massive unleashing of damage on these innocent dungeon denizens is that it can be really hard to see where you’re facing in all the effect-spam. Since TERA has no enemy lock-on system you have to aim at the baddies and more than once I unleashed my best attack into empty space by accident. At least at the start.
A bit farther along I got into the habit of rushing in, hitting hard, then rolling out of the fray, lining up, and rushing in again. And I think this is how a Slayer is intended to be played. As a leather-wearing melee class I can’t stand there and take the hits. When playing solo I watch the mob and dodge away when it’s about to attack but in the flying furball battles of the Bastion of Lok I’d often miss the tells and get walloped. By rolling out of the battle I get out of the line of fire, give my skills a few seconds to cooldown, and I’d sometimes pop a potion to take some of the strain off our healer.
It’s the first time in an MMO where I felt like getting out of the battle and taking a few seconds breather was OK and not indicative of being a slacker (I always feel a lot of anxiety about people thinking I’m not pulling my weight in a group), though I dunno how other members of the party felt about it.
At the end of the dungeon I got a blue (rare) piece of Lancer armor, and Scott got a blue Slayer sword. So that was weird but we traded and everyone (well, at least the two of us) left happy, but I guess that loot drops are random and not tied to character class (unless this stuff dropped and someone was picking it up and it was just going into normal rotation. From where I stood it seemed like it just popped into my inventory).
The only bad news is that my Slayer went from level 23 to just under level 25 from quest and kill experience in one run-through. I kind of would’ve liked to do BoL another time or two without being over-level for it. But I guess I’ll just have to look forward to the next dungeon!
“more than once I unleashed my best attack into empty space by accident. At least at the start.”
I think this is actually kind of great. I’ve learned that with ranged attacks, we have to LEAD THE TARGET when it’s in motion, which is something we’ve never had to do in an MMO. Although wasting a long-cooldown-ability on thin air certainly had me swearing off-mic a few times XD
Also, we all still have alts that will need to run this at some point…
Honestly, other than maybe two crafting drops and one campfire, I wasn’t picking up any loot whatsoever. The blue sword I got was assigned to me and just appeared (I like that part). Since I wasn’t able to do any quests *in* the dungeon, I wasn’t worried about loot-nabbing. Besides, we’re all guildmates, no sense being the selfish greedy one just to sell it all for gold.
That blue lance you traded me is awesome though! And it’s enchantable, I think! Enchantment? Enchantment!
And, no one in the guild (maybe Eric, I don’t know him at all inside of games, only in G+) is going to judge anyone’s performance. The only two with responsibility are the tank and healer. If anything, I thought Oak was over-healing me (and he barely ever needed to heal me) when I could have used mana regen instead. But I’m old-school in that I don’t feel the need to be topped off as a tank and risk the healer getting aggro. I have the gear to take the damage for you all, so let me take it.
We’re all learning our classes and the TERA style of combat. If you feel your class feels better making melee strafing runs, that actually sounds fun and pretty awesome to me. Just go for it!
To be honest. I was too busy making sure you guys didn’t die because I didn’t know what I was doing to really care who was doing what. I have to look for this agro icon next time because I know I pulled threat a few times by over healing (I tend to do that when I’m first starting out as a healer in any game) I was just enjoying the combat and watching everyone do damage. The Pug concerned me a little at first, but he kind of straightened out a bit. His dying during the boss fight was probably just as much my fault as his since I was being very retarded and standing in the middle of all the Bosses AoE attacks. Several times I was very close to dying and running out of mana, if I stopped to fix that problem, I got hit by the boss again. Not knowing the fight it was hard to judge where a safe spot was to stand and by then, the poor Pug had bought the farm. Still after I was able to find him flat on the floor it only took a few minutes to resurrect him, another aspect I like, being able to resurrect people in battle. I’m sure he lost a crystal but he was a bit more careful about taking on too much damage.
A lot of my issue was trying to set up the right chain so I maximized my healing. I actually put my heal/buff spells on a separate bar right as we entered the dungeon so getting the sequence down was a trial and error thing. I will say that I did enjoy healing and will probably continue on that track unless Eric jumps in with his Mystic and I’ll play a DPS with my Warrior.
I 3 manned my first BoL run with the 2 people I”m running in TERA with and we did pretty well, loot wise. I got a new weapon (Demontongue Lance I think it was) a new chestpiece and a new earring. My Sorcerer buddy got new Robes and a new earring I think and my girlfriend got new gloves and a new weapon. It was very cool. Not sure how much slower it was with only 1 dps, but we had a lot of fun and didn’t even have to put up with PUGs 😀