TERA Online Newbie Tips and Tricks

TERA Online Newbie Tips and Tricks by MentosNsoda

So you’re completely new to Tera and ready to kick some serious non tab targeting a**. Well here’s a very long list of random thoughts from a player with multiple level 60s to help you out.
Yes, it’s a long a** read but will save you a ton of headaches and “damn, I wish I had known that earlier” moments.
First of all I am going to come right out and say I am bar far, not in any way an expert at anything Tera. However, I’ve played enough to see a lot of completely new players making the same mistakes over and over again or they don’t know many basic things that make playing the game so much better. The following tips/tricks are intended for the brand spanking new player / first time players to save time/headaches. I will add to them as thoughts come to me. Feel free to add/ammend. Here’s to a more fun/less frustrating play experience!

UNSTUCK: (on your bar/default on the bottom of screen look for the Gears looking icon. Left click it and “unstuck” is the fourth option from the top)
Unstuck works the same as a “safe haven teleport scroll” which will “teleport you to a nearby town or city.” It’s free and can be used once every 20 minutes. This feature is extremely useful so always choose to use unstuck before burning up a safe haven tele scroll which for a beginning player, can be scarce.

ARUNIC PANACEA: (a potion when used will “fully restores your stamina. cannot be used during combat.)
If you are brand spanking new player, gold is very hard to get. Some quests will give you a CHOICE of reward with “arunic panacea” potion as an option. Always choose the arunic panacea potion as they average 9-10 gold each on the auction house/broker. That’s a very nice chunk of change for players lvl 20 and below.

STORLYINE: (when you press “L” it is the far left tab)
1) ALWAYS follow the storyline BEFORE zone quests as many times storyline objectives will overlap with storyline. You will kill 2 birds with one stone as 1 kill (most of the time) will give credit for both quests at the same time.
2) Following the storyline will almost always lead you “in the right direction” of where to go in a zone.
3) Save money: Storyline usually gives you level appropriate gear to handle the zone you are in or are going to. From level 44 and up storyline zones you will start getting gold/superior level gear that is quite good.

ZONE QUESTS: (when you press “L” it is the second to the left tab)
1) The instant you hit a brand new town or outpost, make sure to ride around the entire place at least once. Occassionaly there is a quest that you would have missed. The devs for the most part have been pretty good about placing quests in the line of sight or in the direction you should be heading but not always. Especially at outposts, there can be a ton of NPCs and it is very easy to miss a quest especially if it’s an outpost with a 2nd stair level or very wide. For example, the town of Acarcum is notorious for wide/ multi-level outpost with easy to miss NPCs.
2) If you have completed a bunch of quests and the game is directing you to go back to the main city/town to turn in a quest, do a quick ride around the town again as there are sometimes new optional quests that have popped up that weren’t there before.
3) Repeatable quests: These are quests that usually give xp rewards for grinding mobs or gathering certain items and once you turn them in for the reward, you can retake the quest to repeat them. The are indicated by a “!” mark with an animated circular arrow going around the “!” mark. Also repeatable quests are completely optional. Now this is controversial, but I highly suggest with the exception of the repeatable quests on the Island of Dawn (the start zone of the game), you do not do any repeatables as they usually involved “kill X many of this mob.” Problem is, they don’t give you a 1 to 1 credit for the kills. So the quest may say kill 10 of this but you end up killing 20 or more and still don’t credit for the 10 even if you are following my “mob 4” rule (see MOBS below). If you are following the storyline and regular quests you should have enough xp to hit lvl 60 without doing any repeatables.

CAMPFIRES: (obtained as either a random drop from mobs or can be bought from the “merchant” in towns and major cities under the “general goods” tab).
1) By default you start out with 120 stamina (indicated inside the heart symbol usually under your HP/MP bar). Stamina directly reflects how much maximum HP you can have. As you quest and get hit by mobs your stamina will go down, thus your total maximum HP goes down. While heal potions/elixirs can restore HP, they cannot restore stamina.
2) Gathering can give you a random buff that can increase your max stamina upto 135% (giving you a nice boost in total HP) but that buff can’t go into affect unless next to a campfire.
3) While standing next to a campfire (and not in combat) you will start regaining stamina upto your maximum amount. I suggest busting out a campfire when below 90% stamina to keep a comfortable amount of total HP while questing.
Campfires, for brand new players, can be expensive at 20 silver each. They generally last about 10 minutes then die out. You can “revive” a campfire by using cheaper “firewood” (bought at regular merchant in town under the “general goods” tab). They cost only 5 silver each and can cheaply revive your campfires if you are going to be in a general area grinding mobs.

CHARMS: (dropped randomly from mobs or can purchase from “specialty store” vendor in towns, charms are under the 2nd to left tab “Arcane Supplies”.)
1) Charms give bonuses. If they dont have a specific name in front of them, then they will assign a random benefit/bonus.
2) You can only activate charms only by right clikcing them next to a campfire.
3) There are 3 types of charms:
A) “Onslaught” class: will give a “attack” bonus.
B) “Ethereal” class: will give a “defense” bonus.
C) “Sanguine” class: will give a “suplementary” bonus not directly related to attack or defense.
4) ONE charm can give a bonus to an entire party if they are next to you while you are throwing them in a campfire. Another way to save money and buff many players at once.
Charms are completely optional but are nice to use if you have them. I suggest using them if you know you are going to kill a particular tough mob/boss. Later on as you get up in level, they can be VERY helpful for dungeons and farming in particular.
“MENTO’S DUNGEON/FARMING CHARMS BLEND”: (A personal blend of charms to be used before a boss fight/while in dungeons/or while farming mobs for prolonged periods, not intended for regular quest mobs.)
Consists of “Power Charm” (Onslaught Class), ” Enduring Charm” (Ethereal Class) and “Infused Charm” (Sanguine Class).
Power will increase how much damage you’re group hits for/more damage.
Enduring will increase your resist to damage received and decreases how fast your stamina decreases.
Infused will increase MP/magic points/energy regeneration.
These 3 bad boys will make your life much easier.
I suggest buying the cheaper 1 gold versions and NOT the highest level “Greater” versions that cost 8g each in the specialty store. Why? Because you can spam them until you get “Major” or “Greater” usually no more by the 2nd or 3rd try. So instead of spending 8g each for the “for sure” greater version, you can achieve the same/ similar effect with the 1g versions.

MOBS:
1) MOB 4 RULE: If a quest has “kill X amount” and you want to be efficient, don’t aggro more than 4 at a time. Why? Because if you aggo more than 4 at a time, there is a good chance you won’t get credit for all the kills and spend unnecessary time grinding more mobs than needed just to hit your goal. For example, if you aggro and kill 4 at a time, you will almost always get credit for each of the 4 kills. If you aggro 5 or more you start getting a random amount of credit for kills between zero and the total number, most of the time, not in your favor. Nothing sucks more than a quest says kill 10 of this and you kill 20 and still didn’t get credit for 10 kills.
2) Use your mount/horse to grab aggro. Some mobs are spread out. Hop on your mount and stop next to them/ride by them to grab aggro. If you are a few levels higher than the target mob, sometimes they might be harder to grab aggro. Use your SPACEBAR to have your mount go up on it’s hind legs while next to a mob, this usually grabs their attention. Also you are obviously faster while on a mount, while you have their aggro you can easily start circling the mob. They will almost always form up into a nice tight little grouped ball if you circle them a couple times making them easy to stun/drop a big aoe skill etc in one shot.
3) If you are going to be grinding a bunch of mobs make sure to go to regular merchant and buy campfires and firewood. Also goto the “specialty store” vendor and buy level appropriate bandages (used to heal yourself while OUT of combat) as bandages are almost always cheaper than heal potions or elixirs. From the “specialty store” vendor, Bandages are under the left tab “combat supplies” and charms are under the 2nd to left tab “Arcane Supplies”.

GATHERING:
ALWAYS GATHER fibers, essences and ore (from plants, energy, and ore/rocks nodes)
1) Face it, leveling to 60 for most players is a solo thing as you cannot always have a static group of friends to quest with. Every little bit helps. Even if you’ve maxed out gathering in a particular area, I suggest you still gather. Gathering many times will give you FREE buffs that are usually achieved by using charms that you would otherwise have to pay gold for. So gathering many times will give you free HP/Mana regen, total stamina increase, etc. It might ending up saving you some gold as you will need less heal potions/bandages and kill mobs faster from the buffs.
2) Some effects STACK upto 3x (denoted by a very tiny 2 or 3 in the bottom right corner of the buff indicator). NOTE: Some buffs will not go into effect unless you are next to a campfire to charge them up. For example, the 20 minute stamina buff that raises your stamina by 5 does not go into effect until next to a campfire, so bring campfires.
3) If you are looking in particular to find nodes of gathering, follow the BAMs. Most BAMs in the game are surrounded / in close proximity to gathering nodes. I assume the devs put them there to give your group a free buff before battle. USE IT.
4) Sometimes you can reset the timer on a buff from gathering. For example the 20min buff to increase stamina which can stack upto 3x can be reset (totally random/RNG) by continuing to gather. So in this case if you like having the 135% stamina buff and it’s close to expiring, try gathering and there is small chance it will reset back to a full 20mins.
5) Always keep the gather items (fibers, essences and ores) with you in your inventory until you outlevel the zone. Why? Some quests annoyingly request give me X amount of fiber, essence, ore etc and makes you waste time gathering them. If you’ve been gathering along the way while questing as I suggested, you will already have them in your inventory. You can immediately turn in the quest and received credit.
NOTE: Do NOT merch “verdigris flakes” (a special kind of ore minded from rocks). They average 50 silver to 1g each when sold on the broker/auction house depending on server. Verdigris flakes in particular are in high demand because they are necessary ingredient in making dyes people use to customize their outfit colors. Botttom line, ALWAYS check broker/auction house prices on everything BEFORE you merch something.

“Normal” mobs vs “BAMs/Boss” monsters: BAM = “Big [filtered] Monster”
1) Normal monsters are non BAM/ non “Boss” monsters and are indicated on the minimap as small dots/diamonds.
2) “BAMs/Boss” monsters: inidated on the minimap as a LARGE dot/diamond. Also indicated by a skull symbol over their head. Obviously have higher HP and deal significantly more damage than regular “normal” mobs and under most circumstances are intended to be taken on by a group / not solo.
WATCH YOUR MINIMAP!!!
You will run into monsters that are huge relative to your character size and it’s easy to assume they are Bams/Bosses but are not. The “Jester/Joker” in Labryinth of Terror dungeon comes to mind. He’s easily 2-3x the your physical size but is a “regular/normal” mob monster. I cannot tell you how many times I see people put on “boss” crystal sets to fight him and wonder why they aren’t hitting as hard (see crystals below). Conversely, you can run into relatively “normal” sized BAMs/bosses that you could easily mistake for a “normal” monster and get your a** kicked, for example the small Argon Boss in 3 Towers outside Pathfinder’s Post comes to mind.

CRYSTALS: (from random mobs drops or bought from the broker/auction house and can also be bought from the “speciatly store” in towns under the “Weapon Crystals” and “Armor Crystals” tabs.)
Now I’m going preface this by saying everyone and their mother is going to have their personal preferences for what’s the best set/variation of crystal setups and there are even huge guides to them. The following is a very abbreviated version that I’ve found most useful to new players. Also notice I didn’t mention “crystal vendors” found in main cities and towns? Because crystal vendors sell crap, don’t buy anything from them unless you have to.
***Crystals give you both attack and defense bonuses. There are 2 types:
1) Weapon Crystals: They attach to your weapon that has an available crystal slot when you press “P”. You can attach/remove them by right clicking them either on your character “P” screen or from your inventory.
2) Armor Crystals: Same as above, except obviously for armor.
***There are 3 “grades/quality” of crystals:
1) Regular: does not have the word “Pristine” or “Fine” in front of them. Regular are the lowest grade of crystal and I suggest you avoid them if you can afford to do so.
2) “Pristine”: gives higher bonuses than “Regular” grade crystals. These are mid grade crystals and usually costs slightly more but worth it. These are the lowest grade I suggest you quest with.
3) “Fine”: The highest grade of armor and weapon crystal available. Gives higher bonuses (with very few exceptions) than Regular or Pristine grade crystals. If you can afford these, these are the best in game, however, you can do just fine pre level 60 with “Pristine” grade crystals if gold is tight.
*** Different crystal sets are available at Levels 1, 11, 23, 35, 48, and 58 and are GEAR dependent NOT your character level dependent.
In English this means that your GEAR has to be at least Levels 1, 11, 23, 35, 48, and 58 to equip a crystal of appropriate level on them. You could be for example level 35 character but wearing level 27 gear which means you can only equip level 1, 11 or 23 crystals on them in any combination but NOT level 35 crystals because even though you are level 35, your gear is not.
***Depending on what grade of weapon/armor you have you will have either 2, 3, or 4 available crystal slots. White/uncolored gear can have upto 2 slots. Green/Blue gear can have upto 3 slots. Superior always has 4 crystal slots.
Also, unless a crystal specifically says “cannot stack” you can attach more than one and receive the crystal benefit more than once. For example, “warding” crystal says “cannot stack” and even though you can physically attach more than one to your armor, you will only get the benefit ONCE, so you are wasting a slot by putting on more than one. On the other hand, “vigorous” crystal, for example, does not say “cannot stack” so you CAN attach more than one and you will receive the benefit additively as you add more than one.
When you press your character sheet “P” you cans save cystal sets 1 through 5 (mid screen at the feet area of your character) by clicking on the little disk icon to quickly swap out crystal /weapon/armor sets while not in combat.
Ok, now to get down to the builds. I’m going to make builds from the complete noob perspective.
MENTO’S “SET IT AND FORGET IT” SET: Consists of “Brilliant” weapon crystals to regenerate energy and “Vigorous” to regenerate Health. Best for general mob questing where you just want to keep going without having to slow down to stop and heal or wait for energy/mana to pick back up. Now this is NOT a license to go all Leeroy Jenkins. If you aggro a bajillion mobs or take on a bunch of BAMs at once you’re probably going to crash harder than Justin Bieber’s career in 5 years. But, this will within reason, keep you going efficiently and maximize your downtime while questing. If you’re lazy, and don’t want to worry about switching out sets from level 1 to 60, then the “set it and forget” setup is for you.
NOTE: unless otherwise specificed, all “sets” are against “normal” / non Bam/boss monsters.
*** If you have 2 to 4 crystal slots **
1) Weapon: Brilliant crystal x2, 3 or 4
2) Armor: Vigorous x 2, 3 or 4

***MENTO’S “MAX CONSTANT DAMAGE” WEAPON SET: Used for increased damage against “normal” mobs.
Consists of all “Hunter’s” weapon crystals x2, 3 or 4 and “Vigorous” x2 ,3 or 4.
Hunter’s crystals depending on level, (inflicts an additional “X percent” damage to normal monsters)

***MENTOS’S “BEST BALANCED DEFENSE” ARMOR SET: Used to maximize health regen/defense. Face it, you’re going to get knocked down on your a** a lot in this game. Use it to your advantage by comboing “Vigorous” crystal with “Inspiring” and “Warding” crystals.
“Vigorous” crystal: regenerates HP over time
“Inspiring” crystal: (50% chance to provide “HP regeneration X” when knocked down. Cannot stack”)
“Warding” crystal: (50% chance to provide “Shield X” when knocked down. Cannot Stack)
If you have 2 slots: “Vigorous” crystal x1 and “Inspiring” crystal x1
If you have 3 slots: Vigorous x1, Inpiring x1, and Warding X1
if you have 4 slots: Vigorous x2, Inspiring x1, and Warding x1

***MENTO’S “LAZY BOSS/BAM SET”: Obviously used only for bosses/BAMs situations (large dot/diamond on the minimap). Will provide a linear increase in damage/protection vs Bosses.
1) Weapon: All “Mutinous” crystals (inflicts an additional “X percent” damage to boss monsters)
2) Armor: All “Anarchic” crystals (Decreases damage by “X percent” from Bosses)

***MENTO’S “BEST BOSS/BAM Defense” Armor Set: Used to maximize chances of survivability vs bosses/Bam type monsters (indicated by large dot/diamond on minimap).
If you have 2 slots: “Anarchic” crystal x1 and “Inspiring” crystal x1
If you have 3 slots: Anarchic x1, Inpiring x1, and Warding X1
if you have 4 slots: Anarchic x2, Inspiring x1, and Warding x1

***MENTO’S “THE REACH AROUND” weapon set for DPS characters:
Advantage: Used to (potentially) maximize total possible damage in almost any situation when attacking from behind vs both normal and boss monsters.
Disadvantage: Relies on RANDOM chance of doing a critical or “Crit” against a monster/boss, must attack from behind to max crit, and doesn’t provide any way to regenerate mana/energy.
NOTE: optionally, can max damage even further by using “Scroll of Savagery” (increases Crit Power Multiplier by X for 8 minutes) which is either crafted or bought from broker/auction house.
—3 Crystal set version vs “Normal” monster or BAM/Boss:
1) Carving crystal x1 (Increases crit rate by “X percent”. Cannot stack)
2) Focused crystal x1 (Your attacks do an additonal “X” times critical damage against enraged monsters. Cannot stack)
3) Savage crystal x1 (Critical attacks do an additonal “X” times damage when attacking from the rear. Cannot stack).
—4 Crystal set version vs “Normal” monster:
Same as 3 crystal setup and add “Hunter’s” crystal (inflicts an additional “X percent” damage to normal monsters)
—4 Crystal set version vs “BAM/Boss” monsters:
Same as 3 crystal setup and add “Acrimonious” crystal (Critical attacks against Boss monsters do an additional “X” times damage when attacking from the rear. Cannot stack)

Ok that’s it for now. I’ll add / edit if anyting comes to mind or if anything is in error but otherwise I know it’s very long but should help you out.

Good Luck in your adventures in Tera!