Tera – Sky Castles for the .00001%

Tera_2015_03_12_13_53_15_732
Outside Velika

Sky Castles are for the .000000001% of Tera’ns. Wonder why they didn’t make them for all, or many more, of us?

Read more to see the Enmass Twitch video that describes the castles.

Basically there are 20 castles. Two factions – PvP and PvE, but to have access to one, you must be in one of the top 10 guilds in your faction. Castles are awarded each quarter based on a complex formula, and if you lose ranking, then you lose your castle. Apparently you don’t lose all those customizations that you bought for your castle, and there are a boat load of them, but you have nowhere to display those since you no longer have a castle to show them off.

What a loser.

This is sort of like the Elitist Vanarch thing that was in force when I first joined Tera. Back then, maybe two years ago, there were a few – 3 or 4 – Vanarchs that were elected to “govern” areas of Tera. Basically the only power they had that meant anything to the vast majority of voters was setting the taxes that the NPCs charged on transactions, and Duh, everyone voted for the guild leader that promised zero taxes.

So, eventually, Tera scrapped the whole Vanarch thing.

But they seem to have this thing for Elitist features that benefit the largest guilds and their leaders rather than building in features that benefit the large populations in the game.

Continue reading “Tera – Sky Castles for the .00001%”

Tera – Fashion? Where are we going?

Manafire Plate Costume
Manafire Plate Costume

All the MMOs I’m playing are providing ways that separate how you look from the Stats of your gear. People want to dress up, Either for the current holiday, or in keeping with their character self image.

Wow added “Transmogrification” which changes gear to look like other gear. And of course then began providing “Templates” which were stat-less gear either for $$ or for achievements.

GW2 added a similar way to change the look of gear. Every piece of gear that you own locks that look into your whole account so you can modify any like piece of gear to have that look. And you can mix and match pieces of gear.

Tera had a scheme similar to Wow’s Transmog, but removed it and now has Costumes which are special templates that are overlays for your entire armor set or weapon. No mixing and matching with armor pieces for this scheme. Costumes, both weapons and armor, are purchased with points from Achievements, like the Battlegrounds [aka Arenas], with “Fashion Coupons” that are farmed from large monsters, or purchased in the store.

Tera and GW2 both provide these Costumes. GW2, it seems, cannot make up their minds about whether to have transmute or costumes. They have both. Costumes are primarily obtained from the store and cover up all your armor. Weapon and armor skins are obtained as achievements or in the store.

Elin in Wintera Costume
Elin in Wintera Costume

Here’s a particularly silly example of a costume for Wintera. An Elin dressed up in a snow suit. Don’t get me started on all the swimsuit costumes for both male and female characters. You get the idea. There’s even an achievement, in both Wow and Tera for killing a Boss in a swimsuit. Of course any costume will do to get the achievement. Continue reading “Tera – Fashion? Where are we going?”

Tera – Battlegrounds for Fashions

Black Label Human Robe
Black Label Human Robe

Another way to get great fashions, if you like black, is Battlegrounds. I’ve been doing the Corsair Stronghold over and over to get costumes. To get a costume, you need 7000 points, which you can get in about 3 long days of work in the Corsair Stronghold. Starting at level 30 you can queue for the battlegrounds. I’ve tried the Kumasylam, and you may like that one. The Corsair Stronghold is sort of Storm the Castle kind of event where each team of 20 toons alternatively tries to storm and defend the castle. Each run takes 10-25 minutes and gives you from 150-500 points depending on Lose or Win. And once a day you can do the Pirate Daily quest, which gives good loot and 200 points.

So as it turns out it doesn’t take that long to get your 7000 points, and along the way you’ll get a couple levels, and maybe a couple of hundred Gold in loot mailed to you for your wins.

But don’t take it very seriously, because you are going to die enough to get the Black Death achievement for dying 100 times and the “Death Eater” title.

Continue reading “Tera – Battlegrounds for Fashions”

Tera – Fashion Coupons for Gear Costumes

Knollscream Mail
Knollscream Mail

We have discussed the templates previously available with Fed Bills, and the removal of the template system from Tera in previous posts. I’ve not been playing Tera for a while and there have been some updates. Back in April there was an event for about a month where you could obtain Luxury Fashion Coupons. We were each given 20, but it took 200-500 to purchase anything useful. I still have some of those coupons, but the event is over.

Update 16 Dec 2014: As of the Fate of Arun update, it is no longer viable to get Fashion Coupons with low level toons. The drop rate has apparently been reduced to 10-20% of it’s previous number, so rather than working 3 days for 400 coupons with Basilisks or Nagas in Celestial Hills, it now takes much longer. I’ve given up farming Fashion Coupons. You get 5 coupons for doing completing a dungeon with Instance Match, but that will take far too long to get 200-500 coupons for a nice fashion.

Sometime over the summer [2013 date not certain] a new type of Fashion Coupon was created. This time, the event continues. We are going to discuss my experience trying to farm these coupons and show some of the many costumes you can obtain. There are literally 100s of armor designs and one weapon for each class. Many of the armor designs are not very interesting since they are actually just low level armor that each of us have played in the game. But if you want to “Dress Down” and look like a lower level player, then these are interesting.

Some of the designs are quite interesting and some appear to be unique. But first let’s talk about how to get and use these new Fashion Coupons.

Updated 18 Nov. See Below.
Continue reading “Tera – Fashion Coupons for Gear Costumes”

GW2 – Don’t Forget Runes

Asura Engineer
Asura Engineer

As as Engineer or a Guardian you will find that you are one of the two races with no speed boost skill built in. So you need to find a way to move faster. Runes are the answer.

There are two types of runes that boost your speed if you use all 6 of them. That is, if you use an identical rune in all your armor pieces.

Superior Rune of the Traveler and Superior Rune of Speed both provide a 25% boost in movement speed, but the Traveler Rune costs almost 3 times as much.

Continue reading “GW2 – Don’t Forget Runes”

GW2 – Mix and Match for Nicer Armor

Pit Fighter Chest, Phalanx Legs
Pit Fighter Chest, Phalanx Legs
Here are some interesting armor looks by mixing and matching various armors. Here our Guardian model is wearing a Heavy Armor mixed set with the Phalanx armor from the gem store on her legs with the Pit Fighter chest for a bare midriff. My taste is to keep the gloves and boots smaller and hide the shoulders and helm. This shows off the bare shoulder and arm and does not hide the hair style.
Dyes are Winter Ice and Midnight Blue. Just perfect for exploring the Shiverpeak Mountains.She is wearing the “Full Makeover” exclusive hairdo with a flower and the dark blue hair color.

Continue reading “GW2 – Mix and Match for Nicer Armor”

GW2 – Do Dungeons

Diviner Armor
Diviner Armor

Once you get to level 80, and craft some armor and weapons. Then you’ll need higher strength gear. One way to get this is to go to WvW [ World vs World] and try to keep up with the Chaos. I tried this for about a day, and got about 1400 Badges of Honor.

The cloth armor looks pretty good actually. Here’s an example of Diviner’s Armor that I got with those Badges and some gold from an Armor Merchant in the Mists.

Another way to get better armor is to Grind dungeons.

There are a number of Dungeon currencies. To get enough for armor will take a few days or a couple of weeks. As you do the dungeons the first time during a day, for any character on your account, you get bonus chest[s].

In addition to these dungeons, there are the Fractals. I’ve only done those once, but my gear was not high enough a level. I’m building up my gear with dungeons, and crafting the next level of gear, which begins to get quite expensive. Ascended gear is the final level, and it’s very complex to craft and costly.

All the Dungeon Weapons and Armor have pretty much the same stats, but different looks. There are some details that are different, so choose carefully.

 

Continue reading “GW2 – Do Dungeons”

Guild Wars 2 – All Level 80 Now

GW2_2014_06_19_18_05_17_988xx
Level 80 Human Warrior in Crafted Rare Gladiator Armor

We are all level 80 now. The last push for most of us was with crafting. It’s pretty easy, and not that expensive, to level from 76-77 to 80 by leveling a crafting discipline. We have an Armorer, Weaponsmith, Leathercrafter, Huntsman, Tailor, Artificer and Jeweler among us.

We are all wearing crafted armor and most of us have crafted weapons. All Rare level 80. Not yet Ascended gear, but we will be working on that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading “Guild Wars 2 – All Level 80 Now”

Wow – Expansions Too Hard to Play

Level 90 Death Knight
Level 90 Death Knight

 

Now, before you decide I’m just a whiner, give me a moment. I’m not new to Wow. I played many toons up through Cataclysm and two into Pandaria. I left it behind a while ago and now I’m back trying the Public Test Realm [PTR] in preparation for the Warlords of Draenor. No WoD content in the PTR yet.

I created a Level 90 Death Knight, a class I’ve played a lot in Wow, and started out with the quest that I was given. I was toast. The template toons are created to allow someone to play the new content right away to test the new things. And from looking at the stats you would think that this template toon was tricked out. But as soon as I went to the Timeless Isle – where the quest sent me – I was toast.

Why is that? Continue reading “Wow – Expansions Too Hard to Play”