Introducing TERA: Spells and Honor

Welcome back to a series that aims to get you acquainted with all things TERA. In our last entry, we covered the melee classes available in the game. Today, we are going to introduce the rest of the crew: 1 ranged class, 1 caster class and 2 support professions.

Archers represent the ranged melee class in this game. Being skilled in both medium and short ranged attacks, combined with the ability to manipulate traps, makes them a challenging opponent, similar to Warriors in their ability to stay flexible and change their tactics when necessary.

In PvP, Archers can afford to stay back concentrate on harassing healers and helping bring down focused enemy targets. Should the opponents get too close for comfort, you have a couple of tools to slow them down and buy you the chance to get escape. Traps remain invisible for enemies, usually produce AoE damage and a have various status alignments associated with them.

The ranged caster class is represented by the Sorcerer, who is the primary magic damage dealing class in TERA. Just like in other games, Sorcerers rely on keeping their distance from enemies while unleashing a ton of damage when the opportunity arises. Control wise, if you’ve played a similar class before, things will feel familiar but also slightly more intense, as you will have to exercise precision when timing and aiming your attacks.

Sorcerers truly shine in group PvP, as in order to cast their strongest spells they usually have to sacrifice mobility for power and are very vulnerable in that state. In addition to pure damage, the class makes use of some crowd control abilities such as Sleep, as well as a few DOTs and snares.

At last, we come to Priests who are the definite healers in the world of Arborea. Their ability to keep the group alive cannot be underestimated, and is absolutely vital when tackling harder opponents. Priests also are given a crowd control ability (Sleep), as well as some offensive spells such as Holy Explosion that dish out damage when needed. Offense-wise, the damage output should be enough for soloing, but in group in counters you will always be expected to fill a support role.

At the moment, the Priest seems slightly underpowered as a class when compared to its closes rival – the Mystic. This difference is especially obvious in PvP, where survivability and the ability to escape dangerous situations become even more significant. The devs in Korea, however, have stated that this will soon be remedied in upcoming patches.

The final class we are going to look at is called Mystic, and currently, it’s THE support class for any group in the game. Mystics rely on the use of barriers (similar to Chanter mantras in Aion), as well as a unique style of healing, where a player can create and drop healing orbs for party members to pick up and use. Think of them as Priests’ badass cousins, complete with several crowd control abilities, a couple of offensive spells, and even a few pets that can be summoned for a short while.

Mystics are also a great support class in PvP, where their various heals, buffs and escape all come into play. The main role of the class is to enhance the effectiveness of the party and bring the best out of it in any given situation. You will find yourself keeping a distance from enemies and watching over the action while deciding what will benefit your group the most based on the situation.

As you can see, there are enough classes to choose from to suit the taste of an average gamer. Let’s hope that every one of them will be viable and welcome to join the various adventures in the world of Arborea.