Tera – First foray into the Bastion of Lok (BoL)

Yesterday evening, before I had called it a night, I was lucky enough to get into my first dungeon run in Tera. It was an opportunity that I had been looking forward to for several nights now as my archer had hit level 20. So when a small party were looking to fill out their group with some DPS support, I was all too happy to oblige them. After forming up we entered the dungeon, the Bastion of Lok. With this being the first group quest that I had participating in we did very well. There were no hiccups and everyone performed their role magnificently.

A party of five, minus one. This was the group from the first time in BoL

As much as I would love to recount that first trip I won’t do so. Instead I’ll share my experience in BoL from the second time that I had ran through the instance. This morning I had some time to kill before heading into work. So after dropping off my youngest at school I returned home (a short distance from the elementary school) and fired up the PC. As soon as I was logged into Tera a party invite popped up, to which I had accepted. Because the night before I had logged off outside of the BoL instance this group that needed dps took advantage of me showing up and was I glad that they did so. The second run was also as smooth as the first, and let me add more to the experience.

Our party was comprised of a lancer for a tank, whose name was Lance.Henriksen. An effn’ brilliant name! The healer of the party was Masekai, whose efforts did not go unnoticed. Among our dps were two warriors, Kazuki & Amaura. Together we had no issues going through BoL.

Like any other mmo dungeon we had to go through and clear as many mobs as we came across. Most times they were rooms or hallways filled with groups that came in 2 or smaller mobs that came in bunches. Regardless of who they were we trounced them all equally. Eventually we came across the first big-ass monster (BAM) fight. The fight is with a rather large stone golem. Prior to the fight we had to tangle with Tetra Aniask, which didn’t take very long. Once defeated the golem came to life and then we were in for a much larger battle.

As with every fight, Lance.Henriksen was quick to charge in and get the BAM’s attention. From that moment on it was us moving around, avoiding the BAM, striking from behind and running after it as it moved around the room. This is a very fun fight and some of the animation for the BAM is quite entertaining. Quite possibly my favorite is his right “arm”, which is shaped kind of like a giant stone top. Occasionally he’ll put its tip down, which then spins like a top and zip around the BAM in a wide circle. Should you be within reach of that spinning arm you’ll be knocked down. However this is easy to avoid. The tactics to defeat the stone golem is pretty much tank and spank. Once it was defeated the drops were nice, but nothing good for the archer. Oh well.

Moving around and fighting this beast

Moving on we cleared additional rooms and hallways. What I am absolutely starting to appreciate about Tera is how different each fight can be. Sure, you can open up with the same one or two skills, but the fights are dynamic and never the same. I often find myself changing my tactics to suit the fight. Either I’m running in to drop a slow down trap, followed by a melee attack followed by an explosion jump-back, or I’m strafing around to find the best alignment to take a shot that goes through multiple mobs. Or I may be marking multiple targets that when I release my attack arrow shoot to the sky and land on their targets. However I do it I find that me and other players are always moving around and doing something to the best of our ability. To me this is a far cry from other mmo games where the players follow a strict code of attack chains to maximize their dps. In those games I get tired of the constant action key hit of 2-2-2-3-2-2-2-3-4-2-2-2-3… so on and so forth. In Tera, I can’t stress this enough, the action combat makes the battles feel more epic than they really are.

Here we are, clearing out a room as we move to the final boss of BoL.

Campfires are important to restore stamina. Here we are, outside of the final boss chamber getting our stam up (the heart if the top-left corner)

The final boss is the Bloodhound Vulcan (BV), a gigantic beast that strikes fear into the hearts of normal men. Unfortunately for him this group that entered his chamber were not normal. We quickly cleared out the imps, and then Lance.Henriksen tore into the BV . The fight took a while, but wasn’t difficult. The BV would occasionally launch into the air for a stomp on the group or charge/jump across the chamber that we fought in. Whatever he did we just stayed on him and continued our onslaught.

Moar dots!

No moar dots!

At 10% of the bloodhound vulcan’s health, another sub-boss shows up. In the storyline quest that leads you to BoL, this new sub-boss is the mastermind of the plans that brought you here. When I first entered BoL our group ignored this sub-boss and focused on the BAM till he was dead. And why not? Our dps was pretty spectacular. In our group this morning one of our warriors went off and picked up the mastermind and once the BAM was down we joined him in finishing up the mastermind and then clearing the dungeon. Afterward we rolled on the numerous drops, of which I didn’t get anything. 😦  oh well.

So BoL is a success. From a newbie to the game coming in and worried that my dps wouldn’t be suffiencient to contribute to the team I had discovered that the opposite was true. In both attempts at BoL I felt that what I had brought to the team was of value, and I was putting enough spank to keep me around. This is an empowering feeling that has me looking forward to the next dungeon. Until then I’ll run BoL at least 1-2 more times and until I move forward.