A beginners questions

[skatter]

Well I started on the free trial earlier today and well now its the end of the day and im at the end of the trial. I had only planned on using it to kill a couple of hours but the scenery is so amazing and the majority of players have been so helpful that I decided to subscribe, but only if I could get a hand with a few questions I have.

Biggest question focusing on which skills to branch in it. Now everyone says you can do whatever you want, well yea if time didnt exist and I didnt have a job. So im asking how the majority of people play the game. From what I could get from it you either chose magic or a fighter, and then everyone basically just does whatever with the harvesting and crafting. Is this correct or are there other ways to approach this. (only use to single lvl rpgs) The only reason im asking this is because it seems that you always get more points for each mastery to play with yet everyone tells me it would take way to long to upgrade everything. So basically is it wise to mix it up or is it wiser to mostly stick to a certain skill tree

Another question I had was whats the points of getting multiple attack skills when most of them dont even have a cooldown. Seems like the most effective method is just spamming the strongest skill.

Last question was the whole xstar thing they have, seems some mobs with the same ranking are sure hell of alot harder to kill then others. Or is this just a matter of learning whats dangerous and what isnt.

Other then that any other tactics or info anyone would like to give to a beginner would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[talismar]

I think most people specialize in one tree but also work the other trees. I have seen some advicate specializing in one branch of each tree.

Sticking with 1 branch per tree advances the chosen skills to 250 quicker then doing whatever you like. If you already know what skills you want to use the other branches would be mostly if you needed more skill points.

Personally I do whatever I'm in the mood for, weither it be a lvl 50 skill or 140 skill. It may not get me any skills at lvl 250 any time soon but I have fun.

At the higher say oh 100's attacks, the drain on your health and stamina is quite noticable, so spamming the higher level attack isn't always a good thing to do. If you have healer support that can change how you fight. There are also other stanza's you can learn that help midigate the hp/stamina cost of attacks but they are situational (ie dodge/parry/feint).

Yes the star rating is something you have to learn ... something like a gingo/ragus hits hard but doesn't have as much life as a number of the other critters... as a general rule, the carnivores do more damage but have less hp and the herbavors do less damage but have lots of hp.

[skatter]

yea I noticed that while I can two shot some monsters they can two shot me. Not to cool >_>

[katriell]

See the "con system" link in my signature for info about the star-ratings.

[fiach]

Build up melee, it makes you harder to kill as you get more HP

Then do mage, you can use the extra HP in your spell stanzas as credit.

Dig is good as it can net you good money, you can do it while you wait for HP and Sap to regen and when you join a guild, you will be able to help the diggers by careplanning, or just digging required mats.

Amps are probably the handiest thing to craft, but use dig mats as mob drops of amp mats are hard to build up.

Think the scenary is good now? Wait until you see the other lands, |I wont spoil them by descriptions, but they are brilliantly done.

Make sure you do the quests on the island as they get you really good equipment.

If you are on Cho, send me a tell if you need advice or a guild.

[karmelit]

My advice will be to do what you find most appropriate at any time. Sometimes you get a team and they need someone to melee, at others a healer. Then there will be times when you find yourself alone and thinking what to do now? Harvesting and crafting works well at such times.

You can of course decide that you want to use your 2h sword skill, and go look for someone to team with.

Personally I do what I find suits the situation at any given time, but then again.. I only got jungle harvest maxed out and I have good time whenever I am on Atys

[olepi]

I would agree that building up melee first is a good idea. You can quickly build up your HP, and that will help when you level the other skills. For me, healing was next. Even a lvl 50 healer can help on a team much higher, even up to 150!

The "con" system is a little complicated, in that not all "2 star yellow" things are the same. In general, there are types of damage, and some mobs are weaker or stronger to certain types. For example, stuff with a shell (crab-like stuff) is resistant to smashing, while they are weaker to slashing or piercing. This also holds true for spells.

Predators, like the dogs, are usually a lot tougher for their "con". A 4-star blue Gingo is much harder to kill than a 4-star blue Yubo.

Hope this helps!

Olepi

[chessack]

Biggest question focusing on which skills to branch in it. Now everyone says you can do whatever you want, well yea if time didnt exist and I didnt have a job. So im asking how the majority of people play the game. From what I could get from it you either chose magic or a fighter, and then everyone basically just does whatever with the harvesting and crafting. Is this correct or are there other ways to approach this.

There are two basic philosophies you can use to approach the game -- all others are really special cases of these two.

Philosophy #1 is to work multiple branches evenly at the same time. For example, in Jewel crafting, I have level 90 or so in all 6 branches of skill. This gives you plenty of skill points to get whatever skills you want, but it tends to be slower, since you're taking several times longer to gain each level. Titles and higher stanzas will therefore come very slowly... but you'll have every low-level stanza you could possibly want.

Philosophy #2 is to pick one branch and work it till you get to 250, and then do another branch. For example, getting Jewel Anklet crafting to 250, while your other Jewel craft skills sit around level 55 or something. This allows you to get high level stanzas ASAP, but it will leave you hurting for skill points and the ability to have multiple stanzas at any given level. For example, you probably would not have enough SPs to learn different racial crafting types on the first skill to 250.

People will often mix the two approaches but those are the basic ways to do character development.

Now in terms of whether people pick just magic or just fight, I hardly ever see that. Most of the time, people pick one overall skill in each of the 4 basic types and work that one. For instance... in fight, you might work 2 Handed Slashing... in Magic you might work Healing... in Forage, you might work Forest Forage... and in craft you might work Weapons. Almost everyone I know, for instance, has developed healing magic to some extent, because you never know when an extra healer is going to be needed.

Another question I had was whats the points of getting multiple attack skills when most of them dont even have a cooldown. Seems like the most effective method is just spamming the strongest skill.

It might seem that way but it's not. The higher stanzas are quite specialized, and will fall into a "use it if you can" category. You will find that as you get higher and higher attacks, your stamina and HP (if you spend HP on your attacks to balance the options) cannot keep up with your attacks. You can add stanzas together, so for example:

Increase Damage
Accurate Attack
Bleed

You can in theory take all 3 of them and put them into one attack. But the cost, in terms of stamina drain, would be huge. A few swings and you will be wasted. So now you have to decide... what to do about that cost? You could have it drain HP but this is just going to make your HP go down faster. You could take some of those stanzas out but now the attack will be less powerful. You could put a different "cost" into it -- like "attack after parry", but now you will only be able to use that skill after you parry, which only happens maybe 20% of the time (give or take).

My solution to this is to build multiple skills that have multiple costs and abilities and use them as the situation requires. For example, I have a high-damage attack that has some accuracy in it, but is mainly an all-out attack. Then I have a high-acc attack without much extra damage, but I use it on things that keep dodging. Then I have an accurate bleed. Those are all usable whenever I want, and the cost is moderate but bearable.

I also, however, have a really nice massive high-damage, high-acc attack... but that can only be done after parry (and a similar one only after I land a critical). That's obviously a better attack, but I can only use it after I parry. The rest of the time, I have to use "lesser" attacks because otherwise the cost in terms of stamina and HP is going to be too high.

Also I have a whole 2nd toolbar of custom attacks that are all-out maxed in terms of cost (the best of everything I can throw at the enemy, for a HUGE stamina/HP cost), that I only use when grouped.... If the group has enough healing that I am constantly being healed of stamina and HP, then I can forego the "after parry" and "after critial" stanzas, and just let the healers heal up the huge cost I am paying. However, if I tried those all-out attacks solo, after ONE creature, I'd have to sit down and recover.

Con's already been answered so I won't go into that any further.

C

[jennaelf]

As a bit of a further example on the special attack stanzas:

My strongest attack is only used if I am out in a group or have a good healer who can constantly replenish my stamina. Otherwise, I can only fight ONE thing before I have to sit and rest. I'll be lucky if I don't run out of stamina and endanger myself health-wise - particularly if I am in a fight with something that challenges me.

In some groups, particularly treks, my favored attack is more concentrated with accuracy. This is because many things we encounter on the treks between lands far exceed my general capabilities. I sacrifice damage for accuracy.

So on and so forth. This is most certainly not a 'point, click, kill' set up, and your fighting stanzas can mean life or death to your homin, not always determined by the creature you fight or the sword you use - but by your individual playstyle. There's no one cookie-cutter "use this set of stanzas, it is the best" type scenario.