DizzyPW talks with Kill3rCombo’s GM Moshup about the nuances of Ara Haan, a pole-arm wielding martial artist whose journey in Elsword begins when she becomes possessed by a nine-tailed fox.
Monthly Archives: December 2013
Elsword – Ara Haan the Nine-Tailed Fox Preview
By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), Nine-Tailed Fox Enthusiast
Now anyone who knows me well knows that I like my women on the foxy side of the spectrum. A little shy and demure out in public and a beast when she needs to be is just right. So of course when last week’s Elsword nine days for nine tails countdown notice popped up in my Facebook news feed, I immediately contacted my friends at the Kill3rCombo office to ensure I would be first to get my hands on the possessed pole-arm wielder, Ara Haan. And to my most pleasant of surprises, I found her to be beyond expectations in not only flair, but style.
Lore
So who is Ara Haan? Well to avoid spoiling too much of her backstory prior to you Elsword enthusiasts playing through it yourselves, I’ll keep it short. You may have dealt with her rather nasty brother previously. She is seeking to find him again to avenge her family. And to gain the strength to do so, she has created a pact with an ancient fox spirit sealed in a mystic hairpin that the Haan family was sworn to protect. Now this fox demon Eun (aka Silver) is seeking the power of the El to break her seal and gain ultimate freedom. I’m putting my bet down now that Ara Haan is unwittingly being used by her, blinded by the zeal to find her brother, in order to gain her freedom and unleash havoc on the world. But only time will tell how true this is…
Graphics
Lore aside, one of the strongest points of Ara Haan is without a doubt that she is what happens when you combine Sailor Venus with a nine-tailed fox. Her second strongest point is the animations that compliment this appearance. The stark contrasting orange (Ara) and silver (Eun) design sets her far apart from the existing ElGang at a glance. Her actual skills and combo attacks are a work of art as players will soar across the battlefield unleashing death with her “Thousand Papercut” combat style. It makes sense as her comparative advantage over other characters is her insane ability to chain combo after combo together, and those that master the nuances and timing of her skill breakers will be able to soundly defeat their foes with style.
Her entire kit(sune) is also designed around Korean culture and martial arts. And despite the double meaning of that sentence, it adds for a spicy set of skills as Ara Haan unleashes the might of the animal kingdom with signature stances and skills that would make a dojo master proud to see in action. Whether you follow the path of Tiger-like speed or the might of the Dragon, you can expect for a series of flashy skills that are both mystical in nature, and brutal in practice.
Gameplay and Unique Mechanics
Ara Haan brings some of the best hybrid mechanics to Elsword yet. While technically classified as a melee fighter, her agility and long range skills and auto attack strengths combined with her low base defense and health stats will pidgeonhole most players into utilizing her more along the lines of an aggressive mid-range character similar to Rena’s Nightwatcher path.
Gotta go Fast!
The key is learning your opponent’s cooldowns and animation weaknesses and attacking in a flurry of combo strikes as soon as your agility creates a moment of frustrated futile chasing strikes. Once the first combo is in motion, rather than cancelling your final melee strike in an attempt to initiate a new combo, it’s best to finish the full combo and quickly follow it up with “Energy Absorption,” a nine-tail life sucking orb inspired by typical Gumiho lore.
Landing Energy Absorption is key not only for instantly doubling your combo potential, but it also stands as the cheapest and most efficient option for gaining spirit orbs, a secondary resource independent from mana that Ara utilizes both for unleashing her more devastating attacks as well as unleashing powerful passive traits under certain builds.
Her second strength may come as a surprise for Elsword or Raven players in that despite her melee nature, she’s extremely adept at aerial combo and juggling. This is due to the arching nature of her pole-arm strikes having both fast animations and long reach in a near 360* hitbox. The sheer number of options once a combo has started in mid-air range from triple drilling strikes to slamming your foe to the ground gives Ara Haan her plenty of fun options. While she may not be quite as nasty of a threat to aerial targets as Eve’s Code Battle Seraph or Aisha’s Dimensional Witch, one lucky strike is all she needs to return her target to her preferred horizontal playing field to continue sucking your soul out. Those attempting to flee utilizing terrain and aerial hops will find no solace either as Ara possesses a wicked cool airdash and double jump mechanic that makes her even more agile when giving chase through the air than she is with her feet planted.
And while on the topic of comparing to Eve or Aisha, Ara Haan’s “Energy Absorption” serves the nasty secondary function of draining mana. Opponents that face off with Ara with the intention of relying on high cost ultimates may find the opportunity to use them out of their reach for extended periods, if at all.
But perhaps the deadliest mechanic Ara Haan brings to the field of battle is Eun. While Ara Haan’s thousand paper cut strategy may leave foes frustrated and peeved, a war of attrition with the possessed brunette typically won’t end in your favor as once all three fury points are acquired, her awakened Eun form will leave you bruised and battered. It’s clear from a balance perspective that Ara’s base stats are so low to compensate for the unmatched speed you gain when activating the Eun transformation.
In addition to the standard damage bonus any character gains on a triple bead awakening, you will also notice your attack speed skyrockets and even your attack skill animations seem to play in fast forward. This makes controlling and comboing a challenging skill to learn as your timing will have to adjust to compensate for this change or you’ll end up wasting this advantage as your missed combo opportunities multiply. And while this power is a huge boon in PvP, the lifesteal upon opponent death effect it offers in PvE can give her crazy sustain on those longer gauntlet dungeons.
Eun even eats Lizard Souls. I’m warning you she’s evil!
Skills and Weaknesses
While Ara Haan on paper seems to be an unstoppable powerhouse, she isn’t invincible. The majority of her more devastating skills have decently long wind up animations that offer a small opening for opponents to interrupt her, sending the skills into lengthy cooldowns. The gem restriction on her abilities and passives also greatly hinders her potential in PvP as it can be incredibly challenging to lock an opponent down long enough to drain them repeatedly on a single health bar lifespan, especially in smaller skirmishes and 1 on 1 fights.
This means characters with higher survivability or fast animation counter attacks pose a mean threat to Ara’s tactics. If your character is less reliant on mana or you’re using Rena and able to outrun her and recoop your lost mana, you’ll have an easier time not falling into her preferred rhythm. This is all important to consider when building into your first (Little Xia) and second (Little Hsien) job options.
Little Xia
As with most changes in the recent New Era of skills, Ara Haan’s skills are broken down into a series of A or B choices. Half of her skills seem focused on bolstering her defense and keeping foes locked down while the other half revolve around raw damage and expanding her area of influence on the battlefield. When selecting skills, it’s wise to remember to keep a balance between her mana-based and spirit orb based skills as she is incredibly resource hungry and will quickly burn through either option so you’ll want to have skills relying on the other as back-up while rebuilding the first. Let’s focus on the choices.
Wing Wedge (SP) VS Pulling Thrust (MP)
Wind Wedge offers a low cost MP option for early game dps with swift horizontal strikes in succession. Those opting to rely more on MP can snag Pulling Thrust, a ranged thrust that pulls enemies towards you, disabling them in the process to allow for further follow-up combos.
Quick Thrust (SP) VS Steel Body (SP)
Both options are based on SP so that won’t play a factor. Both skills are also ideal gap closing initiation skills. The only real choice is whether you want to focus on a raw damage focused initiation with Quick Thrust, or brace for impact and potential counter attacks with the defensive buff that comes with Steel body.
Shadow Press (MP + SP) VS Heavenly Strike
Shadow Press offers a gamble that’s great for unleashing a hefty amount of damage and sucking in a Soul Point or two in exchange for a high mana cost. I personally prefer it as the animation of swirling dark energy around you just looks cool while taking down enemies on both sides of you. The alternative Heavenly Strike is a low cost spammable pull that’s more ideal for players that prefer repeated auto attack comboing over high damage skill use.
Shadoweave (MP + SP) VS Falling Dragon (Heavy SP)
I would argue that Shadoweave is the true “ultimate” for the Little Xia base class. It has heavy ranged damage, enemy locking, a pull, and a powerful finisher on tap if you’re willing to blow a ton of SP in addition to its hefty MP cost to get the full bang for your buck. However if you’ve already invested heavily in mana skills, you’re better off burning your entire SP pool (base cost is 5 of your 10 total spirit orbs) to one-shot just about anything slow enough to get caught by Falling Dragon, an aerial jump skill that ends in a ground shaking spear slam. For every additional orb expended you get an insane damage multiplier, making this a niche move that can be a real game changer, especially when used in Eun form to take advantage of the skill animation speed increase.
Little Hsien
When Ara progresses to the first job of Little Hsien, they have the option of expending their points on powerful passive options to help alleviate either her low base stats (Basic Strength Training) or up her total MP pool while gaining passive mana regeneration when her spirit orbs are maxed out (Abundant Power).
Heavy combo focused players will want to look into Energy Activation to reduce knockdown rate and debuff duration along with Counter Switch, a skill that disables and trades places with a foe while canceling out their attack, resulting in serious disorientation. Just know that Counter Switch has an extremely short duration so great timing and the ability to read your opponent’s tells and psychology is vital or else you’ll be wasting your skill points. Let’s look into the A or B options though.
Eighth Trigram Palm (MP) VS Fall (MP)
Eight Trigram Palm is key to take advantage of Little Hsien’s ultimate combination strike. Opening with your basic Dash X spear slam combo and following with Pulling Thrust, you can continue the combo of the Dragon Stances and press it repeatedly to unleash the might of the Eight Trigram Palm technique (Dragon Stance 3). But if you want something more practical in PvP, Fall is a simple low cost skill that elevates enemies briefly and helplessly before slamming them into the ground. It makes for an ideal combo extension when Energy Absorption is on cooldown.
Tiger Claw (MP) VS Swift Rise (Neutral)
Not only is Tiger Claw a great chasing skill for staying glued to an evasive opponent, it combos with her core Little Hsien skill Rock Smash, for a serious one-two initiation strike. Its defensive bonus when combined back to back with the Little Xia Steel Body skill grants a player a great deal of damage soak while remaining quite mobile. Tiger Claw also packs the hidden benefit of being a great source of spirit orbs as well. Swift Rise on the other hand allows you to get up from a knockdown quickly while lashing out at nearby foes with an optional counterstrike. It’s better for helping to clear distance from characters like Raven that keep cancelling you out and won’t give you a second to breath.
Moonlight Slash (MP) VS Fierce Tiger Strike (MORE MP)
This decision is pretty simple. If you’ve been learning Trigram Palm and Pull Thrust, get Moonlight Slash to complete the ultimate combo and unleash the Secret Dragon Art “Blast”. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve seen in Elsword though I’ll admit it can be a bit of a nightmare to pull off the entire thing without getting interrupted. For those following the Abundant Energy route that have MP to spare, Fierce Tiger Strike offers much more reliable utility by buffing you and your allies’ damage while offering a huge and wide sweeping initiation jump strike.
Conclusion
Ara Haan is a fantastic addition to the Elgang roster. She represents a jack of all trades complemented with a high skill floor as well as ceiling so both novice and expert players alike will enjoy her style. The air dash is downright addicting to play around with and her well rendered animations will have you fighting to stay focused on the action without getting distracted by Ara Haan’s beauty. Her mechanics are crisp and her awakening system is a fun side bonus that will never fail to dazzle party members during boss fights while striking fear into her enemies in PvP. No matter how you look at it, her arrival is going to bring new perspective to both group PvE and PvP in the Elsword world. But don’t take my word for it. Catch her launch on Wednesday the 18th and try her for yourself.
And last of all the reason you’re all really here for. To see sexy Korean cosplayers dressed as Ara Haan.
Shotgun News 12/17: LOTRO, STO, DayZ, and Much More!
Lord of the Rings Online Looks to 2014
A letter from LOTRO Executive Producer Kate Paiz looks ahead to 2014 and announces that there will not be an expansion next year. They will instead spend the year focusing on other things like festivals, housing, content, and more. This is after hearing from players, including the Players Council and taking their thoughts into consideration.
Free to Play Star Wars Space Combat Game Announced
There is a new Star Wars game entering the MMO battlefield. Star Wars: Attack Squadrons is a free to play space combat PvP game. There are three game modes which allow up to 16 players to face off against eachother. Registration for the beta is going on now on the official site.
Marvel Heroes Introduces New Packs
A new batch of packs are available for Marvel Heroes for a limited time. There are two advance packs to pick from. The deluxe edition comes with Dr. Strange, Juggernaut, Magneto, Moon Knight, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Silver Surfer, Star-Lord, Sue Storm, Venom, two additional unannounced heroes, Fortune Cards, retcon devices, S.T.A.S.H. tabs, and more. All of this is available for $129.99 and valued at over $400. While the standard edition is available for $99.99.
DayZ Alpha Available on Steam
The highly anticipated DayZ Alpha is now available on Steam for 29.99. The trailer has been pulled from Steam for being too graphic and over 88,000 people are already taking part in the beta.
Inferno Legend Begins Open Beta Testing
Gamebox’s first multi-platform game Inferno Legend has gone into open beta today on Gamebox.com. There are 5 races of devils choose from with an innovative Miracle system. More information about the beta and upcoming code giveaways can be found on Inferno Legend’s Facebook.
Star Trek Online Plans Expansion for Late 2014
After the most successful year ever the Star Trek Online team has announced that a new expansion will be coming in late 2014. Best of all the team is also working on bringing in more famous Star Trek voices. And the Delta Quadrant will play an important role in 2014.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Patch 2.1 Goes Live
Patch 2.1 of FFXIV has gone live. It’s called A Realm Awoken and features The Crystal Tower, The Wolves Den, Housing, Duty Roulette, quests, and much more. Best of all it is available to be played now!
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Post-Launch Review
By Jordan Arnold (Pwarp)
Hear..Think…Feel
These are the first words you hear when you step into the beautiful world of Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. Final Fantasy 14 has had its ups and downs to say the least. After its first release in September 30, 2010 failed miserably, it was brought down a year later (November 11, 2012) both at the request of players and developers alike. Most games don’t get a second chance, but A Realm Reborn proved why some games deserve it. With a brand new engine, redesigned combat system, and a beautifully developed world, A Realm Reborn is now one of the best Pay to Play games on the Market. Featuring the ability to switch to any job at any time, an immersive world to explore, and story quests for not only the main story, but each and every job, Final Fanatsy 14: A Realm Reborn has a glorious story to be told.
Customization
Final Fantasy 14 has five races and over eight classes, not including sub jobs, to choose from and even more coming with future updates. Depending on which class you choose, there are three different cities your character can start in. The class you pick in the beginning does not have an effect on what class you can eventually become. I found Gridania the easiest to move around and find everything in, and Limsa Lominsa the hardest. Visually, the character creation menu is one of the best I’ve seen. I could spend hours just creating different characters without stepping a foot into the actual game.
Thanks to Final Fantasy 14’s job system, once you hit Level 10 you are free to take the airship to a new city and visit one of the guild locations to switch classes. Once you have more than one class, not only can you easily switch by changing your weapon, you can also bring certain skills over to your new class, allowing for even more customization of your character. This switch can be made even more painless by saving skill and gear sets for each class. Skills are obtained simply by leveling up. One thing I did notice, and didn’t like too much, was that you can view every skill your class can get as your character levels. Although this information could easily be found online, I prefer to be surprised with the new skills I acquire as my character progresses.
Character customization is also very user friendly. You can choose your standard hairstyle, eye type and color (even multiple colored eyes), your facial expression, and accessories. You also have the option to add highlights to your hair to go along with the main color. Unlike most character creation options, you also have the option to choose how big or small your eyes are, along with your height. Although the bulk of customization is based on presets rather than sliders, they at least offer enough variety to avoid seeing clones of yourself everywhere you go.
The UI is also very customizable by allowing you to move around menu areas where you want and scale the complete UI up or down. The only downside to this is that you can only scale it up or down to a certain point. I hope in the future they allow us to modify this even more for those of us who enjoy more of a detailed view of the world and less UI interface without having to turn the UI completely off.
Graphics
There’s not much to say except that Final Fantasy 14 has some of the most stunningly and vivid environments I have seen in an MMORPG. From the details of the sky, the cities, and even the NPC’s, every part of the world looks alive and begs to be explored. The only thing I can see that could use an uprgrade is the floral environment textures, but they may be less detailed as to provide less lag for people with older PC’s. However, it would be nice to have an extra option to turn the graphics up for them. There haven’t been many games that I could turn off the UI and just bask in the realistic world view, but Final Fantasy 14 is definitely among them.
Sound
The music in Final Fantasy was composed by none other than Nobuo Uematsu, who has worked on previous Final Fantasy games. There’s not much to say about the music, except that it’s absolutely mesmerizing. The music really makes you feel one with the world, and Final Fantasy: A Realm Reborn has one of the best soundtracks in the MMO genre. I’ve found myself listening to just the soundtrack for hours and can’t imagine it improving beyond what is in-game now.
Controls
Final Fantasy 14 uses your standard keyboard and mouse controls with the option to use a gamepad controller similar to Final Fantasy 11. The gamepad controls are done really well, and it doesn’t affect gameplay very much at all. A lot of games have trouble implementing controller support (Dark Souls PC Port, anyone?), but as I tested it, I found it just as easy to use as a mouse and keyboard setup.
Community
Oh, the wonderful world of gaming communities! You always have that bad bunch of players who refuse to communicate, help out, and just bash every single thing you say or do. Final Fantasy 14’s community is, for the most part, one of the best I’ve come across. This might be due to the IP of the game itself, but anytime I had a question, I just posted it in Shout and there was always someone to quickly reply with an answer or offering to help. As the game has progressed into maturity over the past few months, this has seemed to only improve as the patient gameplay style and subscription model has weeded out a lot of the undesirables from the pool.
Gameplay
A Realm Reborn’s gameplay is similar to most point and click MMO’s out today. Although some would say that this type of control scheme is outdated, as most games are moving towards action oriented combat, I would say that with Final Fantasy games, you almost have to go this route. Since a flash of the screen and turn-based combat wouldn’t work too well in an MMORPG of this scale, I found that the point and click combat system of Final Fantasy 14 was done very well. You have twelve skills available per hotbar, and you can add up to three bars total.
The monsters in Final Fantasy also have their own skills, and will switch up their strategies depending on what you’re doing. When a mob is using a certain attack, you’ll see a red indicator in the area it’s going to effect, giving you time to move out of the way. This means that you have to be aware of your surroundings. You can’t just sit back, spam your skills, and browse the interwebs, because it’s very likely to get you killed, especially during boss fights. My party was wiped out several times during our first run-in with Ifrit before we found out exactly how to dodge his hellfire attack. Regardless of how many times we died, it was a very fun battle, and I loved the challenge of it!
Dungeons
Dungeons in Final Fantasy are very interactive and fun to explore. There are items hidden everywhere, and they even throw in some fun puzzles in order for you to progress. Some dungeons take a lot of cooperation to finish, which gives players a reason to group up to make their objectives easier to complete. Dungeons could use a bit more interactions and puzzles, but other than that, they’re fun and almost as gorgeous as the outside world.
PvP
With Patch 2.1 releasing on December 17th, two PvP modes will be introduced. There are three types of Levels for PvP; 30, 40 and Level 50. The battles will be fought 4vs4 and there will be some exclusive skills to use only for PvP. This will keep things balanced and separated from PvP and PvE. We’re not sure how balanced it’ll be right after the patch comes out, but as always, balance issues will be watched and changes will be made accordingly. The bright side of this system is that when those balance changes do arrive, we can rest assured that our favorite class won’t be nerfed into oblivion in PvE just to level them out in PvP.
Guilds
Guilds in Final Fantasy aren’t called guilds. Instead, they refer to them as ‘Free Companies’. Once you create a Free Company you can manage it from the easy to use Free Company Menu. Not only can you create and choose ranks for members, but you can also customize the names for each rank if you’d like to change them from ‘Recruit’, or ‘Captain’, etc. Free Companies can rank up as they do company quests. Leveling up in rank gives the Free Company even more options such as a Company Chest, Company Crest (logo), all the way up to Rank 5. At this latter rank, Free Companies unlock Free Company Actions that can be activated by the Free Company Leader. These actions range from increasing the amount of exp earned from certain battles, gathering resources, and even perception, which increases what you can see.
The Future
Final Fantasy 14 has a lot going for it. If they continue pushing out updates and expansions, I see no reason that it won’t last as long, if not longer, than Final Fantasy 11, which is still going strong to this day. I do, however, believe that they should release a new class as soon as possible due to the fact that most players that played pre-A Realm Reborn have most classes maxed out, giving them not much to do except for maybe grinding dungeons and socializing.
Conclusion: Great
If you are looking for a MMORPG that has an interesting storyline, wonderful graphics, and enough to keep you hooked for years to come, Final Fantasy 14 would be a great choice. With the eight classes, even more sub-jobs, and plenty of story quests to keep you entertained, there isn’t much else on the market that offers such an immersive voiced story and hard dungeons to keep you going for hours on end. With Final Fantasy 14, it’s easy to lose track of time- I know this from experience. Some would argue that Pay to Play is over with, but with Final Fantasy 14’s sheer amount of content, they can take my money every month as long as they continue updating us with even more content patches and new things to do. Did I mention they’re bringing in the Golden Saucer sometime soon?! What more do you need from a Final Fantasy MMO?
Features: 4/5
Customization: 3/5
Graphics: 5 /5
Controls: 3/5
Community: 4/5
Overall: 4/5
King’s Bounty Legions: App Store Release Trailer
Great tactics, crafting, 3D battles, PvP. Come to win your best battle in King’s Bounty world!
King’s Bounty: Legions
King’s Bounty: Legions is a 3D social turn-based strategy game, available for desktop (PC/Mac) and mobile (iOS/Android). Based on the immersive worlds from the King’s Bounty universe, players head an army of magical and fantastical units against ever more challenging enemies. Join clans and face off alone or with others in battles against other players, or head off to complete hundreds of quests to prove your might. Over 50 creatures with their own strengths and weaknesses are yours to command in turn-based combat where even the environment itself may prove an additional challenge.
Features:
7 Million Strong: Over seven million players are available worldwide to battle against in the game’s automatic match finder.
Ratings & Clans: Climb to the top by seiging enemy garrisons, crafting runes, and joining clans to earn auras that make your hero more powerful.
Balanced Units: Five combat styles across over fifty units, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, ensure that the playing field remains exceptionally balanced.
Hundreds of Quests: As you travel, you’ll meet many people needing your aid and ready to reward you handsomely.
Maplestory 2 CGI Trailer
Nexon Korea reveals official proof of the legendary sequel to Maplestory with this CGI trailer.
Prime World Behind the Scenes – Music
Nival offers a behind the scenes look at the detailed and foreign sounding music in Prime World.
SMITE Kali Rework Reveal
SMITE unleashes a sleeker new Kali that packs a kit bit more range but a bit less damage than her previous self.
MechWarrior Online Can Warfare Teaser Trailer
Warfare on a level you’ve never seen is coming to MechWarrior Online in an upcoming patch. Gather your faction and prepare your tactics.






























