I recently learned about Tera from a friend and I'm like "hmmm ok". I checked out some videos, and from what I've seen so far I'm interested in trying the game out. There's only one thing I'm really worried about.

I know this is more of an eastern style type of MMO, but the mobs and boss battles look generic (once you get past their size and animations). I'm seeing alot of big fights, but little substance. Most of everything looks like a giant tank and spank as everyone runs up and swings wildly without worrying about positioning at all. I don't see any boss or mob abilities like knockback, stun, adds, or something like insta death (or a ton of damage) for not moving to spot X in time, etc.

As this was released in Korea first, I'm worried that it was intended mostly for their playstyle - grind x amount of monsters, level up, grind again, ad infinity.

Has anyone played it enough to ease my concerns that it is more dynamic than that? The combat of the playable classes look awesome, so it seems weird that the mobs would be nothing more than mindless punching bags.

The level 27 ending boss in the dungeon spawns adds that will wipe your group if you're not ready for them. On top of that if you get hit with some of the bigger attacks from bosses it will damn near instantly kill you.

What I would suggest is if you get into the beta theres a cacoon looking thing at level 18 try fighting that, then tell me its easy:).

It kinda sounds like you've either been watching videos without any real BAM fights, or you weren't paying close-enough attention to said fights (or perhaps they were low-level bosses meant for introduction to boss fights and not really difficult).

Boss fights I have seen videos of have plenty of abilities that require players to almost constantly be moving/dodging/evading/blocking. I assure you, playing this game by just standing in one spot the whole fight, you will die unless your healer takes pity on you (which they probably won't for long if you don't actually try to avoid damage lol).

Watch some of the max level content from Korea, positioing in TERA is more important than any other MMO i have played. Tanks can get away with just standing there but dps and healers will die if they do.

so... you have no idea how the game works and are judging it by a few videos?

you are going to get nothing by doing that.

its been said that this is a game you have to play to understand. trust me videos tell you nothing. if you dont want to spend the cash you can always try it out during the beta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Xay_a40rs

^ Check out that video. Shows the boss I'm talking about. And thats an early level world mob.

Most of the fights you see on youtube are going to be of people who have mastered that boss and are way out geared for them. They aren't going to post up videos going LAWL LOOK AT ME DYING.

during the open beta*

I agree, out of all the MMO's i've played, the combat in TERA far surpasses any other. In fact, the only one that comes even close is Vindictus (though it lacks to many other features that TERA has).

Videos don't do the game justice. That's all there is to it. A lot of them will feature "easy" fights because the guys recording them know what they're doing. I don't know of anyone that would post a montage of their failures unless hilarity is involved.

TERA is more a Western MMO. Made in the East, yes, but it's more Western.


If anything, the game is more quest grind. During CBT 1, most players were saying it was too fast of leveling. Getting level 22 was rather easy, mainly for those who already knew more about the game.


Tank and spank mechanics are in TERA but if you are skilled enough, you don't need a tank or a healer, due to it's strategic action style gameplay.


Once you get to lv 20+ you start to see the difference in difficulty of normal mobs, lv 18 mobs in one map were simple, but the lv 20+ mobs were alot tougher in the next map. I honestly died my first time against the lv 20+ normal mobs.

The level 20 BAMs were simple but if you messed up a block/dodge, you got hurt bad. Even on BAMs we had a tank/healer, DPS classes had to dodge/block/get out of the way. BAMs don't just sit there like in other games. They have charging attacks, long range attacks...and what not, and if one walks on you, you get hurt, bad.