For the most part, my time in Blade & Soul NEO has been interesting enough in terms of fights but not so intense that I really felt threatened. As I wrote last week, the switch to the Assassin definitely made me sit up and take notice, but as things have worn on, I’ve sort of felt as if I am entering a bit of a routine.
That has slowly begun to change, however, and I’m starting to think that perhaps the Assassin is a bit of a self-own in the later levels. Or it’s a class that I can’t wait to unpeel and learn to master. I’m still not sure which side I fall on right now.
Before I start to absorb my thoughts there, I should report in on what happened when I followed the previous polls results, which was to put on the PvP outfit and see whether or not that would change my overall experience. It most definitely did not: I had it on for a couple of hours and ran around doing the story and side quests as usual completely unmolested. About the only time that I was killed from someone on the opposing faction was when I was doing a PvP-specific quest, and even then I’m pretty sure that was an NPC and not another player.
After a little while, I elected to just ignore that whole thing, put on my previous pantless ninja girl outfit (we all know that pantslessness improves stealth and combat effectiveness by about 30%), and continued the F Key Smash Train, picking up all of the yellow and blue quest arrows while killing all of the 10 rats or entering into another one of three similarly styled instanced cave maps.
If this reads like exhaustion, then that’s good because that’s what I was feeling. The levels were starting to come less frequently, as were the additional skills to hit, so I was beginning to hit a routine. Or more appropriately a rut. But then at some point, I was kicked out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I can’t begin to tell you what mission it was that I was doing. It was another objective that required me to go inside of yet another cavern to take down some slightly larger enemy. But when I engaged the monster that I was aimed at, I suddenly was being hit with… skill shot attacks? Crowd control effects? Big wind-ups that needed me to read and react? What the devil is all of this, then?
Yes, I hit a point when I was having to manage my various skill chains and escape maneuvers in something that resembled a far more active combat cadence. This was a pretty big spike in challenge as well as a new layer of skill requirement, as I suddenly was discovering that I had a few more abilities available to me beyond simply hitting the counter stance and pressing a specific series of smaller buttons. Furthermore, the rotation I’ve used for basic enemies that stunned them was not working all of a sudden; I was still meting out some pretty tasty DPS, but it wasn’t as free as it had previously been.
I almost died for once. I actually had to use a potion, y’all.
From that point forward, I was being faced with some slightly sterner basic enemies that needed some more focus. I had to pay attention to when my target started blocking attacks. I was needing to use my second dodge move that has a far, far tighter window to get its best benefits. A regular-ass enemy was actually doing things to get behind me. Me, of all people! I’m the Assassin. I’m supposed to sneak behind you, random mob!
Incidentally, the fact that standard fights had me doing more than just one combo string started to make the Assassin feel both daunting and rewarding. I was having some brain whirring moments when I would completely forget what buttons to hit or I would mess up the timing, but then I would also zero in and focus and start to slowly puzzle my way through it all. I hadn’t really felt a comb-heavy buttons-per-minute MMO class like this since pretty much every class in Black Desert. It really started to open my eyes.
That’s not to say that I’m suddenly really digging into this game overall. I am still absolutely abusing the “F” key in order to skip all of this game’s dialogue at breakneck pace, and the game’s “world” still feels like a series of small maps connected by tunnels on a very guided path. Themepark MMOs are often my preference, but hooooo boy is this one uninteresting.
It’s a good thing, then, that the Assassin’s skills and the ramping up of combat in general is still enough to keep me pushing through because there really isn’t much to Blade & Soul NEO otherwise. Fighting might be its only sauce, but hot damn is it a tangy sauce.
So where does that leave us for this week’s polling? Surprisingly, I actually have an option available to me. For the most part I’ve been playing alone in a crowd, bar incessant party invites from bot accounts over and over enough that I had to turn on auto-decline. But I’m now at a point when I can get into a dungeon run or two – provided I can find a party to join at the times that I’m able to play this game, anyway.
But then again, how many people are actually going to be doing these lowbie dungeons? Isn’t everyone else trying to blast the same way to cap in order to do… whatever it is that awaits at that mountaintop with others? That brings us to this week’s poll.
Should I try to run a dungeon or two or just move through the main quests?
- Delve dungeons. Let's see how the Assassin works with others. (68%, 21 Votes)
- Push on with the story. Nobody's going to party with you. (32%, 10 Votes)
Total Voters: 31
Loading ...
Polling will close up at the usual 1:00 p.m. EDT time on Friday, March 21st. We’re almost in the home stretch of this one, folks, and while I feel as if I’ve made up my mind about my general experience with your help, it’s also time to start to focus up and see if I can’t learn this Assassin.
Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.
