Tera Nexus Times

The current nexus times are:

Saturday, Sunday—2 a.m., noon, 7 p.m. pst
Monday, Friday—noon, 7 p.m. pst
Tuesday, Thursday—6 p.m. pst


Friday, September 27, 2013

Strong Lockbox RNG Event Tera Online

So currently the server is having a 300 masterwork scroll event. This event works like so you have a chance to get 300 masterwork scrolls from one of the RNG strong lockboxes. The keys can be obtained either by purchasing keys or by doing cosairs daily. Whether your a new Tera player or whether you have been playing for awhile you need to know that chances are these events are a big trap for people.

The keys on Mount Tyrannus are selling for about 660 gold each. I spent all my time farming and saving keys from cosairs as well as my elite status so I had a nice big total of 62 strongbox keys. In the past 62 keys would have been more then enough to make some kind of decent return but that is no more. They added so many garbage items in the strong lockbox that it makes it not even worth taking the chance.

If I had to take a guess about what the drop rate is on the masterwork scrolls would be the items and drops would be something like so:

Masterwork Scrolls (300) 0.69%   Event Only
Masterwork scroll (1-3) 2%
Ruby 5%
Charm of some type 30%
Emerald 0.80%
Battle Panacea 5%
Summon NPC various types 40%
Divine Infusion 10%
Valkyron Potion 3%
Valiant Potion 10%
Sapphire 3%
Masterwork Alkhest (random amount) 1%
Extensive Alkahest (random amount) 0.90%
Spellbind 17 - 21  1%
Refined Alkhest (random amount) 4%
Crystalbind 10%
Canephora Potion 0.90%
Village Atlas (1time use) 5%
Reputation Boost 1%
Experience Boost 1%
Gold Hunting Boost 1%
Complete Crystalbind 0.80%
Semi Enigmatic scrolls 0.80%
Instance Reset Scroll 4%

I'm sure I'm missing some more items within this list which they throw into the mix as well and this is more a guess of what the percentages feel about but after skimming though the forums and looking at some of the more recent posts about what people got after opening lockboxes off event times these feel like pretty close percentages for most of the item drops.

So you might be like okay what's the issue if this is what drops from the lockboxes? The issue is more the way RNG tables usually work. The more items that are higher up on the percentage's the less chance to score the very valuable items making it a pure game of gambling. When it comes to loot systems with no guarantee of getting the 300 scrolls it could be anything from 1 to a million if your really that unlucky. These systems are not time based like masterworking they are a complete computer generated random system. An example of how these work is more like so:

set $LW3,rand (0,1);
if ($num3 == $LW3) goto Loss;
if ($num3 != $LW3) goto prizeclaim;

Of course we have no true way of knowing exactly how the formula is interprated for the script and unless someone could look at the source code of how it works we wouldn't know for sure but it's pretty safe to say it's a RNG gamble which will not net you a rich reward. You will most likely spend 90,000 gold to have a chance to get 300 masterwork scrolls which is worth about 90,000 and with the other items which you are more likely to obtain you can consider that you will most likely end up with between 98,000 to 120,000 at most. Those figures coming out if masterwork scrolls are about 300 gold each and most of the junk you obtain is pretty much junk like it was for myself.

Of course some people have gotten lucky I would imagine the best thing you could ever do is don't be greedy if you get 300 masterwork scrolls out of 10 to 30 strongbox keys don't keep using them and quit while your ahead cause the more you use the more money you will be wasting. I would also not suggest buying strongbox keys instead farm them from cosairs daily quest's.

The RNG system has changed from what it used to be for events I know some of you are most likely thinking but the first few events I was lucky as all hell and got 1,000 extensive alkahest or 1,000 masterwork alkahest. But remember when it first came out the amount of items in the table was so much smaller. The table used to look more like so:

Masterwork scroll (1-3) 2%
Ruby 50%
Emerald 10%
Battle Panacea 5%
Divine Infusion 50%
Valkyron Potion 15%
Valiant Potion 50%
Sapphire 30%
Refined Alkhest (random amount) 20%
Masterwork Alkhest (random amount) 10%
Spellbind 17 - 57  10%

The difference is that you had much less crap possible during the events people had more reason to spam keys because in the event that some rare item was added in even at a low chance of 1% or under you would have a pretty high chance of scoring at least something worth selling even if you didn't score the main item. Back then you could buy them and shoot for getting emeralds and masterwork alkahest as well as spellbind and make a fortune on it. Now if you actually get any spellbind it's gonna take you 40 to 50 keys to see some. When it first came out every 5 keys used almost always had some spellbind, masterwork alkahest, or refined alkahest.

One of the other things to note is you have different types of the reputation boosts, experience boosts and the gold boosts these can come in 1 hour, 1 day, 5 days and percentage wise 50%, 100% like so which also add's some more hidden ways you get screwed pretty much and also add's more to the RNG table of hell. The same for the NPC summons because there are 4 different types of merchants each has its own chance as well as adds more to the table to make it impossible to get what you want.

But they don't want you to think about it by breaking it down to fine detail because if you knew all of what drops from the strong lockboxes and thought about it in the terms of each type of possible item being another thing to stop you from getting what you wanted you would realize it's not a win situation for the player. It's a win situation for Enmasse why do you think they allow you to get keys by doing daily pvp this is because they know out of any events even if every single person in game farmed keys on all of the characters the chance that they actually win during an event is so low they can afford to give something out to the player base. They know someone will always buy strongbox keys.

So until they either remove the items which are pretty much junk like the NPC summon scrolls or the charms which are worth 8 gold to 50 gold at most you will continue to see really poor winnings. And for even more information I'll go and post some of the average prices:

Masterwork scroll (1-3):  300 gold to 550 gold each
Ruby:  100 gold to a merchant
Charm of some type:  8 gold to buy from a merchant
Emerald:  1000 gold to a merchant
Battle Panacea: Cannot be sold or traded worthless outside of use
Summon NPC various types: 10 gold to 50 gold each
Divine Infusion:  3 gold to 20 gold each
Valkyron Potion: Cannot be sold or traded worthless outside of use
Valiant Potion: 9 gold to 20 gold
Sapphire:  200 gold to a merchant
Masterwork Alkhest (random amount): 119 gold to 170 gold each
Extensive Alkahest (random amount):  120 gold to 190 gold each
Spellbind 17 - 21:  40 gold to 90 gold each
Refined Alkhest (random amount):  14 gold to 21 gold each
Crystalbind:  20 gold to 50 gold each
Canephora Potion:  Cannot be sold or traded worthless outside of use
Village Atlas (1time use): 50 gold to 100 gold each
Reputation Boost:  400 gold to 800 gold each
Experience Boost:  200 gold to 500 gold each
Gold Hunting Boost:  50 gold to 200 gold each
Complete Crystalbind:  500 gold to 1,300 gold each
Semi Enigmatic scrolls: 400 gold to 2,000 gold each
Instance Reset Scroll: 300 gold to 600 gold each

Of course market prices change so these might not apply to every server at every time but out of the items some of them cannot be traded these are slightly useless unless your going to use them yourself pretty much. Most of the items which have the highest drop chance are your items worth 3 gold to 100 gold quite a lot of these items exist now making it harder to actually get what you really want. So keep this in mind when you plan on opening lockboxes. It's up to you whether your a gambling person but after this last event unless they totally plan on giving a super awesome reason to open them I give up on ever trying my luck again. Not with the odds of getting so much garbage that is either not sellable, sells for nothing, or isn't frequent enough to make it worth spending the gold.

Your welcome to comment and post if I've missed any possible items which drop from strong lockboxes or if you have anything constructive that you feel I might have missed.

Update: I figured I would also mention some of my guildies bought over 200 keys and had no luck what so ever so that means that chances are this event will have you spending more in the neighborhood of 300 on an average if your luck is bad.

Alliance Invisible BAM's for Superior Membrane Farming

During the alliance patch which was added to Tera Online more recently Tera added some new unique BAM's which can be found inside of the alliance zones. These new type of BAM's are dracolith monsters which look exactly like dragons. These drop the materials needed to craft the nocturium gear which is the faction based gear as well as materials which are used in the ruthless visionmaker also known as nightforce pvp set.

These new type of BAM's can be an interesting hunt because while they are walking on the path's that they spawn on they are completely invisible unless aggro'ed by mistake or unless detected using one of the detection items that comes from the alliance daily quests. These BAM's are a tough fight they have a lot of health as well as come with a raid icon but don't be fooled currently these are ment to be killed with only 5 people or loot will not drop. In a future Ktera patch they have fixed this error allowing a full raid group to kill the bam and still get the loot for them. But currently farming them must be done with 5 people or else the superior membrane will not drop.  You will most likely will want to bring a tank and healer to kill these they take quite awhile since dragons move around so often.

The mechanics for these dracolith's is also randomized and can fight like the ones found at the level 50's which fly around a lot and have charging type skills to run you over and knock you down. A more easier type which doesn't move all that much but spin's its tail around similar to the boss in labyrinth of terror. Or the most frustrating one which is just like the one from Crucible of Flame which does ground digging and coming up and knocking people over a lot. Depending on which boss you get you might want to change the type of DPS you end up bringing so that it makes the fight very easy.

Finding the Invisible BAM:

The spawn for these BAM's work exactly like the bosses in Ragnarok Online in that they will respawn an hour after they are killed. One BAM spawns within each of the alliance maps this means that you will find at least 3 total BAM's as long as no one has killed them.


There's a little trick for finding the BAM in the location without using tons of sticks or zig zaging around trying to run into him. If you hover your mouse over the area the pointer will turn into a hand pointer when your hovering over a location the invisible bam is in. This makes it much easier to find it without having to use detection sticks. The speed in which he walks is pretty fast and he always walks in a counter clockwise rotation so you can always go clockwise to run into him faster.

 



If your having problems with people trying to steal BAM's from you theres some tips that can help you deal with them. For someone to kill steal a BAM from you they need to accomplish two things:

1. They must do 50% of the BAM's damage
2. They must get the last hit.

If either of these are not met the bam will not drop loot. If you manage to meet both of these you will get the superior membrane and all of the items from the drop. This is a standard for any BAM's in game not only to the ones inside the alliance zones. Most people do not know about these tips which makes them pretty useful.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Tera Online Back Costumes

Azure Butterfly Wings
This blue butterfly wings costume can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.


Can I Haz Backpack
This is a rare cat backpack which can only be obtained by RNG luck with the Lost-and-Found loot box.

Monarch Wings
This yellow butterfly wings costume can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.

Popo Backpack
This cute popo backpack costume can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.

Popo Piper Backpack
This cute popo piper backpack costume has a flute which the normal popo backpack does not this backpack can only be obtained by RNG luck with the Lost-and-Found loot box.

 
Shellback
This koopa shell costume can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.

Spun Sugar Wings
This pink wings costume can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.

Waverider Surfboard
This surf board with castanic and elin decals can only be obtained from the Fun in the summer Beach box with RNG chance.

White Butterfly Wings
This white butterfly wings costume can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.

Scuba Tank
This Scuba Tank can only be obtained from the Fun in the summer Beach box with RNG chance.

Wind-Up Key
This clock looking key costume can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.

  
Deluxe Aqualung
This gold colored scuba tank can only be obtained from the Fun in the summer Beach box with RNG chance.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Dragonfury Recruitment Video? The Dolphin Girl

So my guild is on Mount Tyrannas server the guild's name is Dragonfury. We are a pretty unique guild in that we have a large amount of girls in the guild and usually as a warning of the crazy randomness that people are subjected to the officers of the guild have started to share the video from one of our streamers which is deemed as the Dolphin girl video. The leading star Bumble decided to help our guildie Honey.Bean get her new mayhem axe to +12 so they where sacrificing animal noises to the RNG gods trying to give her luck.


Watch live video from shizen579 on TwitchTV

The guild is a really lively one and this video itself has had over 200 views already on twitch tv since it is pretty funny. I know the first time I saw it I was laughing so hard I couldn't breath. But I figured it would be interesting for the blogs followers to have a moment of funny.

English Translations of Magical Fortress

So the names of the sets of gear for the new ruthless visionmaker gear as well as just the names of the dungeons has changed from what Ktera is calling them. This makes it really confusing for people who are unsure which dungeon is which and what is dropped from the dungeons.

So to avoid confusion I thought I would explain how the new names work to make it real easy so people aren't lost.

The Armor Sets:
Adonis = Steadfast
Aphrodite = Wonderholme
Ruthless Conjunct = Strikeforce
Nightforge = Luminous and/or Ruthless Visionmaker

The Maps:
Ancient Underground Waterway = Channelworks
Red Mist Pirate Ship = Shattered Fleet
Giant's Forest = Kezzel's Gorge
Magician's Fortress = Wonderholme

With the Nightforge gear there is three different recipes which you can buy to craft this gear. Of course you have the recipe which uses Bloodrave as a material. The recipe which requires Visionmaker and the recipe which makes the Luminous the sets themselve will tell you on the tool tips whether they are PvP or PvE.  The colors for the PvP set is Red and Black while the colors for PvE are Green and Blue.

The Wonderholme sets of gear come in three different variations as well. You have the quick which has attack speed in the gear. You have keen which comes with crit and you have powerful which comes with more damage.

Ktera names:
Agile Aphrodite
Enraged Aphrodite
Swift Aphrodite

Thursday, September 5, 2013

New Alliance Patch Templates

So the alliance patch has been out for awhile and it brought us some PvP some dailies and such and the introduction to the federation gear which everyone kinda does not see much point in getting the armor for because its lesser compared to the previous conjunct gear only newer people would want to get this gear as catch up gear.

But today while I was helping one of my guildies named Tick.Me.Elin do the uncommon summoning sticks so he could get his uncommon membranes a tier 14 dropped. At first we thought it was just a peice of fodder but it turns out besides this item being a tier 14 ilvl 151 item it also comes with a very nice unique skin but unfortantly these don't seem to be usable as a template which is slightly disappointing.

At the same time though it might be worth holding on to them for if they end up changing this in the future but I figured I would post a screenshot of this new weapon. I think it's possible that there might be armor templates which go with it as well and while I farm these bams I will keep an eye out for anymore unique drops and figure out whether they are useable for templates.

The name of the lance which dropped is: Lasting Impression


I checked my auction house and also found a bow for sale for a quite large amount but the template isn't something ive seen before either.


The bow is called: Learning Curve

The interesting thing was I checked some of the online codex's and none of the NA databases seem to have any information about these items. I would imagine that if these end up being usable as templates in the future they will be quite expensive I told my guildies not to just give them away especially since none of us have tried to use them as a template yet. Cause not sure if maybe it's just not marked as a template out of a mistake or not. I'm thinking about also asking to see if the GM's plan on allowing us to use these as templates. I would love to be able to skin my Visionmaker using these cause they are pretty unique.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Berzerker Weapon Skins

This section is dedicated to Berzerker weapon skins in Tera Online. As more Berzerker  skins are added to Tera Online I will be updating this topic as needed.




Goldrift
This is the golden weapon skin which came when you pre-ordered Tera Online and paid for your first month of subscription from Tera Online. The only way that you could still get this is if you pre-ordered the game and paid for your first month during pay to play times but never received your weapons in the item claim. Or if you buy an account from someone which has it. The black dragon skins look the same only black colored.


Gargantalon
This was apart of the dark side items which where released this can be bought though the EMP shop as either permanent or temporary items.

Banhammer
This came out shortly after the release of the black dragon weapon skins this can be bought from the EMP store in permanent or temporary versions.

Icetouch Axe
This was apart of the ice weapons items that got released this can be bought though the EMP shop as either permanent or temporary items.

Icegrip Axe
This can be bought from the EMP shop or you can get them from the Ice Box by RNG chance these can also drop the Ice Grip version by chance as well. This version is similar only the lance glows for these weapons regardless of whether your weapon is master worked or not.


Bento Axe
This is apart of the food items that got released to Tera Online this can be bought from the EMP store as a permanent or temporary item.