this game is doom
As far as combat systems go, TERA is probably up to the expectations of those who are bored with the standard MMORPG target selection and hotkey mashing combat mechanism. It uses a reticular targeting system and active avoidance to spice things up - making the combat experience closer to what one would expect from a TPS or action game than from a typical MMO.
However, once that novelty has settled in, the drawbacks of the overall design creep up : the combat animations lock characters down almost all the time, making the combat experience an exercise in frustration as you try to dodge only to to be thwarted by the system because one of your combat animations is still going.
Playing TERA only reminded me how much better, more fluid, original and inspired the Chronicles of Spellborn combat system was. It was everything the TERA combat system was, and also everything it fails to be : much better use of command terminals (keyboard and mouse), much more fluid combat because most skills were actually instant-cast, much more original because of the stat system and the buff/debuff side effects of most skills, and much more tactical because you actually had to design your own skill deck and plan your combos and sequences ahead of time, thinking not only about optimum but also about contingencies. TERA provides none of the above, and only leaves you with reticular targeting and half-baked active avoidance (half-baked because of the animation lockdown), which makes it more frustrating than anything