Hurray. I’ve reached level 65 with a character. No surprise, it was a gunner.
But, to be honest, the end-game story content leaves much to be desired. There is a straightforward story line to discover the whereabouts of Dakuryon, the Archdevan lord, and to take him down. The whole story line takes only about two days to play through from the Airship Docks at Velika.
The end of the story line leads you to level 65 and gives you an almost complete set of Idoneal gear. This gear cannot be enchanted, but it has extra buffs as you have more of it equipped. And you get all but the belt and brooch. The belt is available for about 4200 Vanguard Points, and at this point you may have a little more than 2000 points. A very nice brooch is available for an easy quest line at the Nakatam Tower that introduces you to the Lightbringers who created the sky castles.
Odd Observations
There are some odd things with this story line:
There are a few instances, but you cannot play these instances with party members. So if you feel a little light on healing, you can’t take a friend to help out. Oh… So now we are being all Moral about having helpers? If you can party in the open world, why restrict helping out in the instances? Must you prove you can beat an easy boss in the instance in order to progress? This is in contrast to Guild Wars 2 where playing in a party in a personal story line is allowed, and while the helpers do not get the rewards, they do receive a modest “Karma” reward, which can be spent to purchase gear and other items in the game. Since toons are down leveled to the current content in GW2, helping does not disadvantage the helped player. In Tera, down-leveling is only done is some restricted cases in dungeons. I’m not clear on the current state of “Mentoring” in dungeons.
The most difficult part of the story line is the assault on the final keep. If you aggro too many guards at one time here, you are toast. But the gunner was able to recover from too many guards piling on. I noticed that I seemed to have a companion Lancer NPC that was probably there to act as a tank for Archers / Sorcerers etc. that need tank help.
At the end you are rewarded with a complete set of Idoneal gear, including weapon, armor, jewelry, and crystals. As I mentioned, the only missing parts are a brooch and a belt which can be obtained with additional work.
End Game Content
So it appears that the End Game for the Fate of Arun is designed mostly for those who want to grind dungeons. And from the reports I’ve seen about how to get the advanced gear beyond Idoneal, it is a lot of grinding. Apparently the drops are either very rare or the crafting is very expensive and the mats are hard to find. But this is what one would expect. Despite claims to the contrary, Tera is a grinding MMO. You can grind Corsairs for a nice black costume, Grind BAMS for Fashion Coupons, Grind Dungeons for mats, Grind Dailies for Rep for crystals and upgrades and most recently Grind Vanguard Requests for rep to purchase gear / crystals and upgrades.
Now that I have my Idoneal gear I’m all set to go back to the lower level content to clean it up. I can finish those dungeons to finish stories solo now. And grinding BAMs for fashion coupons will be easy. Also I hear there is a way to get a black panther mount by getting reps in three different factions. But first I have to get a few more of my toons their Idoneal gear and their level 65.
Vanguard Request Rewards Taper Off
I started my second gunner, on the second server, by using Vanguard Requests to ramp her up to level 62 so she could progress beyond Amadjuak Trading Post. This is the first convenient stopping point on the journey. After about five Vanguard quests I noticed that the rewards had all reduced to 2 Gold each, rather than having any Vanguard Rep, Experience or Charms. So it seems that there is a daily limit to how hard you can work on Vanguard Requests.
So it appears that one is encouraged to do only a few Vanguard Requests per day and then the rewards basically drop to the noise level. One should remember that at this level of play, mobs often drop 1G, so a 2G reward is basically less than pocket change. However, Feedstock and Vanguard Rep points are significant rewards. It seems prudent to watch your rewards carefully to avoiding working for basically nothing. The player above that played today, didn’t do any dungeons, so there were still dungeon rewards for those requests.
This reward strategy differs markedly from the rewards in Guild Wars 2, where one is encouraged to continue playing since the rewards for events – which amount to the same things as Vanguard Requests in Tera – do not diminish as one plays. There are limits to some rewards in Dungeons in GW2, but not for events.
Idoneal Gear
The reports of how to get Idoneal gear were not clear where I found them. The normal Story line gives you the gear. No problem finding or following the story line. It is a single straight line with bread crumbs taking you from one place to the next in a progression. The only caveat is to watch your level and if you fall behind, then do a few Vanguard Requests to level up before progressing. For example, some grinding on VR’s is probably required after first arriving at Amadjuak TP before moving on or you may not be at the expected level 62. Here are pictures of Gunner Idoneal Gear.
Enjoy.
– ww
Windy Weather 