History VideoGame / PerfectWorld

*** Or to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere flee the battlefield]] and come back after Kailia has cast her debuff-and-purge, in cases where the player knows his/her party is going to fail the die-roll and if he/she [[CowardlyLion belongs to a class that is allowed to be cowardly now and then]], but in Dawnlight Halls' Deicide and Judgment modes, this is an ''extremely'' risky tactic, as Kailia will constantly launch OneHitKill attacks covering a quadrant of the battlefield, entirely unrelated to aggro (moving clockwise in Deicide, moving randomly in Judgment), and if you're in the hallway leading from the dice-game board to the battlefield when her death-quadrant strikes one of the two front quarters of the battlefield, [[NoFairCheating Kailia WILL strike you dead, even if you're on the supposed "safe" side of the hallway.]]

** Until the ''Eclipse'' expansion, players who wanted to level-up their combat skills needed to visit trainers for their respective classes. As such, class trainers existed in the home cities of the appropriate races: Blademaster and Wizard in Etherblade, Barbarian and Venomancer in the City of the Lost, Archer and Cleric in the City of the Plume, Seeker and Mystic in Tellus City, Assassin and Psychic in the City of Raging Tides, and (most recently) Duskblade and Stormbringer in Dawnglory. In addition, there were once whole "teachers' districts" in northern and southern Archosaur, Silver Pool, Dreamweaver Port, Sanctuary, and the City of a Thousand Streams. Nowadays visiting a class trainer is not necessary to level-up most combat skills. For sentimental reasons, however, the home-city class trainers remain where they are.

** The [[TimedMission Icebound Underworld]] has a few bosses that [[InvertedTrope circumvent ranged classes' strategy]] by [[DamageDiscrimination being immune to damage from attacks made outside a certain radius]]. Chief offenders include [[PoisonousPerson Venomous Feather Enkros]] and [[MagmaMan Magma]] [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent Serpent]] [[BigRedDevil Honga]].
* ContinuingIsPainful: Played with. Regardless of means of resurrection after death (returning to the nearest village, being resurrected by a Cleric or Mystic in the party, or reviving oneself via a Resurrection Scroll in one's inventory), the revived PC starts out with barely any HP or MP (though these may be restored to full in seconds via equipped Guardian and Spirit Charms), Chi is reduced to 0, and all buffs are removed. From Level 10 onward, each death results in a loss of EXP, which increases with character level, although there are methods of preventing the EXP loss. On a PVP server, or if one is in PK mode on a PVE server, a slain player risks dropping any item whose description does not explicitly state, "Doesn't drop on death," creating an opening for NinjaLooting. This is especially true if the player's death was at the hands of another player - and even more so if the slain player has [[VideogameCrueltyPunishment infamy from engaging in PVP]], denoted by the player's name being any shade of red or coral-pink. Gear may also be shattered, rendering all its protective properties moot until the shattered gear is repaired at the appropriate specialist for a cost in Chi stones as well as coin.

** Played straight to a more [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality reasonable]] degree in the first boss-battle room of Flowsilver Palace, the final room of the Uncharted Paradise, and throughout the Dawnlight Halls. In these places, there exist safe places to stand above or next to the lava, but falling in equals OneHitKill. (Fortunately, Dawnlight Halls is the only example in which anything has a knockback move that would throw players into lava, or a mechanic that raises lava up to the players' level. Otherwise, lava is fairly easily avoided.)
* CooldownManipulation: Used by [[BonusBoss Belle Leun,]] [[FlunkyBoss the Mad Princess]] of Flowsilver Palace, and by [[PuzzleBoss Kailia the Otherworldly]] of Dawnlight Halls, with both bosses increasing skill cooldowns by two full minutes. In the former case, Belle Leun uses it as a desperation move, and it expires after a few seconds. In the latter case, however, Kailia will use it any time the party fails to roll the correct number on the puzzle die - and on top of being combined with StatusBuffDispel, the debuff increases the cooldowns of the next FIVE skills, including Genie skills, that affected players use and CANNOT be waited out, nor dispelled through the use of debuff-removing remedies.

* ElementalRockPaperScissors: a pretty large part of the magic damage system, especially for Wizards (who can cast 3 of the 5 elements). To wit, Fire > Metal > Wood > Earth > Water > Fire.

** For Dawnlight Halls squads fighting the Fireforged Changeling at the end of the "cages" middle path, periodically the boss will vanish from the battlefield, and while the melee classes are fighting to destroy the Lava Triggers in order to reveal her, in Deicide and Judgment modes, Flame Elementals will appear around the edges of the battlefield, and they will heal the Fireforged Changeling if they reach the center. Worse still, in Judgment Mode, Flame Elementals that reach the center also raise the lava level - potentially spelling OneHitKill for players.

* PhlebotinumOverload: [[TheEvilPrince Tyrant Prince Mushi]], Flowsilver Palace's final boss, has a battle mechanic that will cause everyone's Chi meter to instantly fill up to its maximum capacity once every 30 seconds for as long as he is on the battlefield. Players whose Chi meters are already full must "spark" (use Celestial/Demonic Eruption to consume all three Sparks and gain a measure of health, greater attack power for a few seconds, and a very brief invulnerability) or use some other Chi-costly skill before this happens, or this move will OneHitKill them. (1 Spark=100 Chi)

** Arguably, however, the one skill that makes Blademasters most useful to their squads is Heaven's Flame, an area-of-effect Axe & Hammer skill that inflicts a potent DamageIncreasingDebuff on all targets in the area, lasting several seconds.
* MultiRangedMaster: The Archer class is able to wield bows, crossbows, and slingshots.

** Arguably, however, the one skill that makes Blademasters most useful to their squads is Heaven's Flame, an area-of-effect Axe & Hammer skill that increases the damage taken by all targets in the area for several seconds.

** While Homesteads are mostly for the vanity factor, the practical benefits to building and leveling a Homestead include materials to craft elitist-level gear, as well as advanced skill books for each class.

* CombatPragmatist: Towards endgame, many bosses have frontal area-of-effect strikes (physical at close range, or magical at both close range and long range, the latter usually represented by a cone-shaped illumination), that OneHitKill all classes caught in them except Barbarians. (In one case, a system message explicitly states that only Barbarians can bear the brunt of the attack.) When facing one of these bosses, [[InTheBack attacking from behind]] or at range is almost always a necessity.
* ContinuingIsPainful: Played with. Regardless of means of resurrection after death (returning to the nearest village, being resurrected by a Cleric or Mystic in the party, or reviving oneself via a Resurrection Scroll in one's inventory), the revived PC starts out with barely any HP or MP (though these may be restored to full via equipped Guardian and Spirit Charms), Chi is reduced to 0, and all buffs are removed. From Level 10 onward, each death results in a loss of EXP, which increases with character level, although there are methods of preventing the EXP loss. On a PVP server, or if one is in PK mode on a PVE server, a slain player risks dropping any item whose description does not explicitly state, "Doesn't drop on death," creating an opening for NinjaLooting. This is especially true if the player's death was at the hands of another player - and even more so if the slain player has [[VideogameCrueltyPunishment infamy from engaging in PVP]], denoted by the player's name being any shade of red or coral-pink. In the event of PK, gear may also be shattered, rendering all its protective properties moot until the shattered gear is repaired at the appropriate specialist for a cost in Chi stones as well as coin.

** Played straight to a more [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality reasonable]] degree in the first boss-battle room of Flowsilver Palace, the final room of the Uncharted Paradise, and throughout the Dawnlight Halls. In these places, there exist safe places to stand above or next to the lava, but falling in equals OneHitKill. (Fortunately, Dawnlight Halls is the only example in which anything has a knockback move that would throw players into lava, or a mechanic that raises lava up to the players' level. In Flowsilver Palace and the Uncharted Paradise, lava is fairly easily avoidable.)
* CooldownManipulation: Used by [[BonusBoss Belle Leun,]] [[FlunkyBoss the Mad Princess]] of Flowsilver Palace, and by [[PuzzleBoss Kailia the Otherworldly]] of Dawnlight Halls, with both bosses increasing skill cooldowns by two full minutes. In the former case, Belle Leun uses it as a desperation move whilst below a third of her health and once her intervening mini-boss is defeated, and it expires after a few seconds. In the latter case, however, Kailia will use it any time the party fails to roll the correct number on the puzzle die - and on top of being combined with StatusBuffDispel, the debuff increases the cooldowns of the next FIVE skills, including Genie skills, that affected players use and CANNOT be waited out, nor dispelled through the use of debuff-removing remedies.

* PortalNetwork: Perfect World proper (developed continents thus far being the Midlands and the Western Steppes), [[GreenHillZone the Celestial Vale]], Morai, and the Primal World (and to lesser degrees Lothranis and Momaganon) each have a separate one, operated by aptly-named Teleport Masters for fees ranging from 200 to 8,000 coins per teleport, with fees increasing if one wishes to go to a location that requires multiple teleports due to the Teleport Masters' limited knowledge. Originally, to be able to access the teleport service, players had to enter a town on foot (or on a mount or flyer) for the first time and speak to the local Teleport Master. No later than Level 30, however, players are issued a "Geographic Map" that instantly unlocks every teleport point. In addition, single-use teleportation tools are legion:
** Teleport Incense works in the same manner as the Town Portal skill: as an EscapeRope to the nearest village. These take a few seconds to activate, but may be used to escape combat unless the enemy uses an interrupting move.
** Teleport Stones teleport players from anywhere on any map to a selected active waypoint on the Perfect World Midlands map. These cannot be used while a player is in combat.
*** [[spoiler:The ''Neverfall'' expansion introduces Perfect Teleport Stones available in the boutique, allowing users ultimate freedom to teleport from any map to any point on any other map. Later, the ''Redemption'' expansion introduced Storm and Lightning Teleport Stones, which basically give 7 or 30 days (respectively) of infinite Perfect Teleport Stones in one inventory slot. As with their predecessors, they cannot be used while in combat.]]
** Quests that award Teleportation Scrolls with specific target destinations may be bought or traded for in select locations, or may be offered as event rewards.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler:The entire Morai main quest line is a fiasco of this nature, thanks to [[ShapeshiftingSeducer Chigo,]] [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent the Serpent Emperor]] pulling the strings so that everything you do only makes things worse. When you find the body of a murdered child, named Little Yetz, at the bottom of a lake, your attempts to identify her killer and bring him to justice [[DivideAndConquer breed discord among the Three Orders that hold power in Morai: Corona, Luminance, and Shroud]]. Those Essences of the cities in Perfect World that "Glory" called on you to bring to him so that he could "save Morai from the Wraith invasion"? Chigo, who [[KillAndReplace has murdered the real Glory and now impersonates him]], uses them to activate the Undying Dial on behalf of his boss, [[BigBad Jian'rin the Wraithlord]] in order to take over Perfect World and Morai alike. You must make several trips to Morai's Endless Universe to retrieve all the Essences after unwittingly handing them over. What's worse, he killed Little Yetz because [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness she was no longer useful to him]] after being the only denizen of Morai able to harvest the coveted Immortality Fruit.]]

** Bajan is far from the only boss to do this. Many endgame bosses have TPK moves that kill every player who isn't inside a small sector of the battlefield when they happen, and usually this small sector is only made safe with the breaking of an object that spawns. (And unless explicitly stated otherwise, no, these attacks CANNOT be stopped with interrupting moves.)
*** ''Most'' of these moves are instantaneous and can be safely avoided with a seconds-long invulnerability potion reserved for emergencies. [[TreacherousAdvisor Natya Veda, the Great Advisor]], Dawnlight Halls' final boss, is the exception - she launches an Oblivion attack three times (at 70%, 40%, and 10% of her HP) that becomes progressively longer (22 seconds, 24 seconds, and finally 30 seconds) each time she launches it. The only way to survive Oblivion is to kill an add called the "Soul Vessel" and hide inside the barrier that the "Lantern of Hope," which drops on the Soul Vessel's death, provides.

* EvilIsSexy: [[TreacherousAdvisor Natya Veda, the Great Advisor]], Dawnlight Halls' final boss, definitely qualifies, as do (to lesser degrees) her minions [[PuzzleBoss Kailia the Otherworldly]] and [[PlayingWithFire the Fireforged Changeling]].
** [[BonusBoss Belle Leun,]] [[FlunkyBoss the Mad Princess]] of Flowsilver Palace could also qualify, if one overlooks her ashen complexion and [[RedEyesTakeWarning glowing red eyes]].

** The ''Eclipse'' expansion has since introduced the [[SixthRanger Nightshade]] race as a different breed of High Men. FlavorText describes them thus: "Created by the son of Pan Gu, the Reapers once guarded the Celestial Vale. Bound to the life of the Divine Child, they defended him until he was mortally wounded in battle. With the last of his strength, the Divine Child freed the Reapers from his service and sent them to Perfect World. Now known as the Nightshades, they draw upon the power of the moon to battle evil in all its forms." Nightshade melee fighters are called Duskblades and wield sabers, while casters are called Stormbringers and channel Water- and Metal-based elemental attacks through magic scythes.

* NoGearLevel: More like a "No-Buffs Level," but when you enter Heavenfall Temple (a 108-floor solo instance accessible from Level 89 and Aware of the Myriad/Aware of the Void cultivation), [[StatusBuffDispel all buffs that may be in effect when you enter are dispelled]], and your Guardian Charm, if you have one equipped, is disabled while you're in the instance. You can get some of your buffs back with remedies in your inventory (especially the Spirit of Assault and Spirit of Defense), but they aren't quite as effective or long-lasting as those cast upon you by your fellow players, and since all of your remedies share the 2-minute cooldown timer, you can't buff yourself with them nearly as quickly. You can get around the disabling of your Guardian Charm with an Auto-Recovery Stone (boutique item that allows you to use potions and single-strike Defense Charms automatically any time your HP falls below a certain percentage), but potions and Defense Charms, too, have cooldown timers to be aware of, and these too may fail you if you're fighting something especially nasty.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted. In regard to character stats, "Spirit" refers both to a point score that works similarly to Attack/Defense Levels (raises damage that the player character inflicts while reducing damage taken) and to the points earned from completing quests and killing monsters (at a rate of 1 Spirit to 4.5 EXP on average) and spent to improve skills.

* PortalNetwork: Perfect World proper (developed continents thus far being the Midlands and the Western Steppes), [[GreenHillZone the Celestial Vale]], Morai, and the Primal World (and to lesser degrees Lothranis, Momaganon, and Old Heaven's Tear) each have a separate one, operated by aptly-named Teleport Masters for fees ranging from 200 to 8,000 coins per teleport, with fees increasing if one wishes to go to a location that requires multiple teleports due to the Teleport Masters' limited knowledge. Originally, to be able to access the teleport service, players had to enter a town on foot (or on a mount or flyer) for the first time and speak to the local Teleport Master. No later than Level 30, however, players are issued a "Geographic Map" that instantly unlocks every available teleport waypoint. (Players can also buy this item from the boutique for their lower-leveled characters.) In addition, players may carry and use a few types of single-use teleportation tools:
** Teleport Incense functions in the same manner as the inherent Town Portal skill: as an EscapeRope from any overworld area or instanced dungeon to the nearest village or other Safe Zone. These take a few seconds to activate, but may be used to escape combat unless the enemy uses an attack that interrupts skill channeling.

*** [[spoiler:The ''Neverfall'' expansion introduces Perfect Teleport Stones available in the boutique, allowing users ultimate freedom to teleport from any map to any point on any other map. As with their predecessors, they cannot be used while in combat.]]
** Each of the Three Orders of Morai (Luminance, Shroud, and Corona) offer Teleport Scrolls to member players who have enough Prestige, for nominal fees in Influence (Order-specific currency). These scrolls teleport players from any location on the Perfect World map to the home base of the issuing Order: Nexus of Luminance, Shrouded Temple, and Corona Sanctuary. Other quests that award Teleportation Scrolls with specific target destinations may be offered as event rewards.

** For Dawnlight Halls squads fighting the Fireforged Changeling at the end of the "cages" middle path, periodically the boss will vanish from the battlefield, and while the melee classes are fighting to destroy the Lava Triggers in order to reveal her, in Deicide and Judgment modes, Flame Elementals will appear around the edges of the battlefield, and they will heal the Fireforged Changeling if they reach the center. Worse still, in Judgment Mode, Flame Elementals that reach the center also raise the lava level - spelling OneHitKill for players trying to destroy Lava Triggers on lower platforms.

* TotalPartyKill: Pathkeeper Bajan, first boss in the Uncharted Paradise, is ''extremely'' fond of this trope, as he has numerous battle mechanics to this effect. If any player steps outside his arena while the fight is going on (including returning to the instance entrance after being killed), or if one of his elemental avatars, which spawn around the edges of the battlefield, is allowed to reach him in the center...the squad feels this trope in full force. Bajan also does an attack that reels everyone in and causes OneHitKill circles of death to appear around him, but players who know when to run (and when to stop running) can usually manage to avoid these. (His trial isn't called "The Trial of Unity" for nothing.)

* ContractualBossImmunity: Bosses in all areas of the game tend to be immune to Freeze (prevents movement), Silence (prevents attacking), Stun and Paralyze (these do both), and usually also Knockback. A handful of them either have special attacks whose channeling cannot be interrupted, or a buff that gives them the ability to use all their attacks with absolutely no channeling and thus no room for the player party to use its interrupting moves. (Fortunately the [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies Harpy Wraith]], an extremely tough Midlands overworld boss, appears to be the only known example of the latter.)

** Subverted in the first boss-battle room of Flowsilver Palace, the final room of the Uncharted Paradise, and throughout the Dawnlight Halls. In these places, falling into lava equals OneHitKill. (Fortunately, Dawnlight Halls is the only example in which anything has a knockback move that would throw players into lava, or a mechanic that raises lava up to the players' level. In Flowsilver Palace and the Uncharted Paradise, lava is fairly easily avoidable.)

* MarathonBoss: The five Elementalists that players performing Level 6 (Professional) workshop quests for their Homesteads must defeat in order to gather Elemental Crystals. All of them have an area-of-effect strike that reduces players caught in it to just above half their HP regardless of maximum HP or any defensive capabilities, and each one has a different debuff used periodically throughout the fight: [[DishingOutDirt Steady Earth Elementalist]] fires off a Stun, [[WhenTreesAttack Gigantic Wood Elementalist]] reduces magic attack power, [[ExtraOreDinary Gilded Metal Elementalist]] slows channeling, [[PlayingWithFire Blazing Fire Elementalist]] reduces physical attack power, and [[MakingASplash Flooding Water Elementalist]] slows melee-attack rate. Even among endgame players with Nirvana T3 gear (best gear available without cash-shopping) it is not advised to approach any of the Elementalists without a squad of at least four players.

* NoGearLevel: More like a "No-Buffs Level," but when you enter Heavenfall Temple (a 108-level solo instance accessible from Level 89 and Aware of the Myriad/Aware of the Void cultivation), [[StatusBuffDispel all buffs that may be in effect when you enter are dispelled]], and your Guardian Charm, if you have one equipped, is disabled while you're in the instance. You can get some of your buffs back with remedies in your inventory (especially the Spirit of Assault and Spirit of Defense), but they aren't quite as effective or long-lasting as those cast upon you by your fellow players, and since all of your remedies share the 2-minute cooldown timer, you can't buff yourself with them nearly as quickly. You can get around the disabling of your Guardian Charm with an Auto-Recovery Stone (boutique item that allows you to use potions and single-strike Defense Charms automatically any time your HP falls below a certain percentage), but potions and Defense Charms, too, have cooldown timers to be aware of, and these too may fail you if you're fighting something especially nasty.

* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: Apart from instanced dungeons where falling into lava causes instant death, player-characters are completely immune to falling damage.

* MarathonBoss: The five Elementalists that players performing Level 6 (Professional) workshop quests for their Homesteads must defeat in order to gather Elemental Crystals. All of them have an area-of-effect strike that reduces players caught in it to just above half their HP regardless of maximum HP or any defensive capabilities, and each one has a different debuff used periodically throughout the fight: Steady Earth Elementalist fires off a Stun, Gigantic Wood Elementalist reduces magic attack power, Gilded Metal Elementalist slows channeling, Blazing Fire Elementalist reduces physical attack power, and Flooding Water Elementalist slows melee-attack rate. Even among endgame players with Nirvana T3 gear (best gear available without cash-shopping) it is not advised to approach any of the Elementalists without a squad of at least six players.

* CaptainObvious: "Cannot perform this action while dead."

* PortalNetwork: Perfect World proper (developed continents thus far being the Midlands and the Western Steppes), [[GreenHillZone the Celestial Vale]], Morai, and the Primal World (and to lesser degrees Lothranis, Momaganon, and Old Heaven's Tear) each have a separate one, operated by aptly-named Teleport Masters for fees ranging from 200 to 8,000 coins per teleport, with fees increasing if one wishes to go to a location that requires multiple teleports due to the Teleport Masters' limited knowledge. Originally, to be able to access the teleport service, players had to enter a town on foot for the first time and speak to the local Teleport Master. No later than Level 30, however, players are issued a "Geographic Map" that instantly unlocks every available teleport waypoint. (Players can also buy this item from the boutique for their lower-leveled characters.) In addition, players may carry and use a few types of single-use teleportation tools:

* ElementalRockPaperScissors: a pretty large part of the magic damage system, especially for Wizards (who can cast 3 of the 5 elements).

* AnAdventurerIsYou: Let's count the ways; you got your run-of-the-mill warrior (Blademaster), four SquishyWizard classes (the aptly named Wizard and Cleric, the latter combined with TheMedic, as well as the Psychic and Stormbringer classes), one GlassCannon (Archers), a MightyGlacier (Barbarians), two technical classes (Assassins and Duskblades) and a combination squishy wizard/petmaster/debilitator (Venomancers, though all magic classes have some sort of buff/debuff).
** Lets not forget the the {{BFS}} toting warriors (Seekers), and their counterparts the {{Jack of all Trades}}, er magical trades that is (the Mystic)
* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou: The Elysium expansion has introduced a Homestead system, accessible to players of at least Level 90 (before first Reawakening) and at least 35,000 Reputation (Rank 6). Players start with only a sixteenth of the available Homestead land accessible to them, and may unlock more land through the use of Elysian Charters. Operations include the ability to buy, sell, and trade varying types of decorations between players who choose different crafting masteries. These crafting masteries are leveled up through daily quests that range from simple treasure-hunting to killing dangerous monsters in both dungeons and the overworld.

* CombatPragmatist: Towards endgame, many bosses have frontal area-of-effect strikes (physical at close range, or magical at both close range and long range, the latter usually represented by a cone-shaped illumination), that OneHitKill all classes caught in them except Barbarians. (In one case, a system message explicitly states that only Barbarians can bear the brunt of the attack.) When facing one of these bosses, [[InTheBack attacking from behind]] is almost always a necessity.
* ContinuingIsPainful: Zigzagged. Regardless of means of resurrection after death (returning to the nearest village, being resurrected by a Cleric or Mystic in the party, or reviving oneself via a Resurrection Scroll in one's inventory), the revived PC starts out with barely any HP or MP (though these may be restored to full via equipped Guardian and Spirit Charms), Chi is reduced to 0, and all buffs are removed. From Level 10 onwards, each death results in a loss of EXP, which increases with character level (unless the player has Reawakened and reached Level 100 a second or third time, which unlocks the option of storing EXP in the Ancient Tome in order to retroactively level-up the 100-105 bracket of a previous cycle). On a PVP server, or if one is in PK mode on a PVE server, a slain player risks dropping any non-Bound item whose description does not explicitly state, "Doesn't drop on death," creating an opening for NinjaLooting. This is especially true if the player's death was at the hands of another player - and even more so if the slain player has infamy from engaging in PVP, denoted by the player's name being any shade of red or coral-pink. In the event of PK, Bound gear may also be shattered, rendering all its protective properties moot until the shattered gear is repaired at the appropriate specialist for a cost in Chi stones as well as coin.
** There exist Guardian Scrolls, mostly available in the boutique (although some may be event rewards) that, at the cost of the scroll itself, prevent slain players from losing EXP, dropping items, or having their gear shattered.

* ContractualBossImmunity: Bosses in all areas of the game tend to be immune to Freeze (prevents movement), Silence (prevents attacking), Stun and Paralyze (these do both), and usually also Knockback. A handful of them either have special attacks whose channeling cannot be interrupted, or a buff that gives them the ability to use all their attacks with absolutely no channeling and thus no room for the player party to use its interrupting moves. (Fortunately the [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies Harpy Wraith]], an extremely tough overworld boss, appears thus far to be the only known example of the latter.)

* DualWielding: Barbarians can dual-wield axes & hammers. Seekers might dual-wield either of two different flavors of swords. Blademasters can [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs do both of the above]]. Assassins dual-wield daggers.

* GuysSmashGirlsShoot: Player-character gender is almost [[PurelyAestheticGender purely aesthetic]], i.e the Untamed race alone hard-wires all its men into the warrior class and all its women into the mage class (Barbarians and Venomancers, respectively). Most of the artwork (loading screens used throughout the ''Eclipse'' and ''Elysium'' expansions, class-trainer NPC sprites and War Avatar illustrations), however, follows this trope, depicting physical damage dealers as male and magical damage dealers as female.

* MultiRangedMaster: The Archer class is able to wield bows, crossbows, and slingshots.

* TheSavageSouth: Personified in [[KillItWithFire Flame Emperor Locen]], a denizen of the Advanced Endless Universe [[GoddamnedBoss particularly despised among the player-base]]. War Avatar flavor-text describes Locen thus: "The bloodthirsty South Sovereign of Morai. To him, there is no greater pleasure than in [[RapePillageAndBurn killing and pillaging]]. [[WalkingWasteland Leaving fire and destruction in his wake]], Locen truly is a monster."

*** Negated by the fact of later expansions adding instanced dungeons that force players to play their classes as originally intended: Palace of Nirvana later in ''New Horizons'' Quicksand Maze and the addition of a [[BrutalBonusLevel Judgment Mode]] to Flowsilver Palace in ''Eclipse'', Uncharted Paradise in ''Elysium'', and Dawnlight Halls in ''Neverfall''. There is now a use for almost all of the Non-APS oriented classes within these dungeons so the argument that you cannot play at those levels is null and void. [[spoiler:Also the fact that Frostcovered City experience has been nerfed to horrendously low levels means that no one is going to be reaching level 105 anytime soon who isn't already there.]]

** These days, it's more "Allegedly" free than ever. To wit:

*** Negated by the fact of Caster Nirvana having been released a few months ago. There is now a use for almost all of the Non-APS Oriented Classes within Caster Nirvana so the argument that you cannot play at those levels is null and void. [[spoiler:Also the fact that Glacix Dragoon Experience has been nerfed to horrendously low levels means that no one is going to be reaching level 105 anytime soon who isn't already there.]]

** In addition, until the Eclipse expansion, players who wanted to level-up their combat skills needed to visit trainers for their respective classes. As such, class trainers existed in the home cities of the appropriate races: Blademaster and Wizard in Etherblade, Barbarian and Venomancer in the City of the Lost, Archer and Cleric in the City of the Plume, Seeker and Mystic in Tellus City, Assassin and Psychic in the City of Raging Tides, and (most recently) Duskblade and Stormbringer in Dawnglory. In addition, there were once whole "teachers' districts" in northern and southern Archosaur, Silver Pool, Dreamweaver Port, Sanctuary, and the City of a Thousand Streams. Nowadays visiting a class trainer is not necessary to level-up most combat skills. For sentimental reasons, however, the home-city class trainers remain where they are.

* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Villainous]] [[HeroicSecondWind Second Wind]]: Appears about half the time in Flowsilver Palace's new Judgment Mode, when the party is fighting [[BonusBoss Belle]] [[FlunkyBoss Leun,]] [[BadassPrincess the Mad Princess]]. Once Belle Leun is down to a third of her health, she will cry out for her husband, Tyrant Prince Mushi, to intervene on her behalf: "[[SaveThePrincess Mushi, my love! Save your princess from these intruders!]]" When Mushi re-enters the battlefield, he behaves exactly as he did in the previous fight (the throne room) in terms of battle mechanics, but only has a third of his normal HP.

* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Villainous]] [[HeroicSecondWind Second Wind]]: Appears about half the time in Flowsilver Palace's new Judgment Mode, when the party is fighting [[BonusBoss Belle]] [[FlunkyBoss Leun,]] the Mad Princess. Once Belle Leun is down to a third of her health, she will cry out for her husband, Tyrant Prince Mushi, to intervene on her behalf: "[[SaveThePrincess Mushi, my love! Save your princess from these intruders!]]" When Mushi re-enters the battlefield, he behaves exactly as he did in the previous fight (the throne room) in terms of battle mechanics, but only has a third of his normal HP.