Adjusting to Patch 1

[khayll]

Hello All!

I just bought this game last week and have played approxiamately 3 hours worth. I'm brand new to MMORPG's and I scoured the net trying to find the right game to purchase before I settled with SoR. So far I'm quite happy with my decision. I spend about an hour a day reading these forums to get an idea of what the MMORPG community is like. Mostly very nice and helpful people, I'm glad to see.

Lately I've been reading about what Patch 1 will be doing, most notably reseting our skills and stanzas. I currently have a Lvl 15 Magic, Lvl 5 Melee, Lvl 1 Craft, and Lvl 1 Harvest character. I plan on developing a Fighter/Wizard type character. In regard to Melee, I plan on developing Hand-toHand combat skills. It's magic where I may have a problem.

I was hoping I could get a few words of wisdom as to what's worth acquiring and what isn't. For instance, I, as of yet, have found no real use for the spell Root. If I have the option of selecting that after the patch I may not. However, it came with my 3 magic starter packs so it may come with them again. Basically I'm asking for help in learning from what other see as mistakes they have made. I don't get much time to play (approx 5 hrs/week) and I would like some guidance if others are kind enough to impart it. Ideally I would like to rise in Off Magic as well as Def Magic (although I don't fully understand Def Magic). I adventure alone most of the time so I figure some Hand-to-Hand melee skills may help me out incase I need it. I absolutely don't understand which 'bricks' I should acquire versus those that I shouldn't and I don't want to spend time fiddling around since I don't have much time to play. I've read the current threads regarding Patch 1 and found that most people are happy with it, yet, I couldn't find much in the way how people plan on readjusting there Magic path if they plan to do so at all.

I hope my intent is clear, however, if it is not, I will try to be more specific in any area anyone wants clarification on. I thank all in adavnce for helping me out.

Good day to all.

[aelvana]

When patch 1 is applied, there will be a full skill point refund. It's the perfect time to answer your own questions -- get all those skills you want to try, and you'll have the points refunded and be able to make better decisions after patch 1

[Trinity]

Hello Khayll

Send me a tell in game and I'll be willing to assist you in any questions. I'm basically an offensive elemental mage but am working on the other branches so I can give you some information.

It would be my pleasure.

[mikwana]

Root is most usefull in a group. In practice, most of the 'link' effects (all the ones with dotted lines around them) are for use with groups. While you can kill things perfectly well with the damaging link effect spells, you are a 'sitting target' while linked, and unless you can take a beating, won't be too successfull. That being said, if in a group (even with only one other), link spells can be very effective, rooting a big nasty bug far away so the casters and gunners can shoot it, blinding it so they don't take as many hits, dealing damage consistantly without having to worry about casting, and so on.

Likwise, if you don't want to spend much time messing with actions themselves and making your own unique spells (effective or not, they are yours. ), then don't buy individual stanzas, only the finished spells when they become available. Note, however, that this is kind of like using basic materials for equipment. It's decent, and is perfectly usable, but it's not as good as it can be. A good example of this is that I thought my acid 3 was taking far too long to cast (4.0 seconds with no penalties), so I removed the time credit and added a HP credit. That alone cut the time down to 2.8 seconds, so, though it does cost a relatively minor amout of HP (7 or 8), the ammount of time it saves more than makes up for it when soloing as one extra hit by a monster can easily take more than all the castings combined, and while grouped allows me to deal damage, switch to heals, and so on at a much faster rate.

[ummadnaz]

Well at your level there are some pretty hard decisions to make and one mistake may waste hours of time spent on leveling up since the intial cost of the spells are amazing high. I would recommend if you plan on being an elemental mage, get cold damge and acid. Also try to use the stanza system to your advantage, make three different cold or acid spells. The first one uses sap and range. Try and avoid time credits in your spells as they really mess you up. Then make another one with hp and range so that when you have no sap and no way to heal it you can use this one. Though a bit risky but in dire situations it comes in handy. The last one should be a free spell, try and max out the time and range credit and if needed some sap or hp. This is basically a spell that you use when you are low on hp and/or sap and need to get out of a tough situation. This is how I do everything but mostly I do not solo so it might be different for you. Hope that helps you out a little By the way defensive magic is either healing or using stun but you cannot use that properly if you are not in a group. Stun might be usefull but still takes time away from your hitting ability.

[khayll]

Wow! I'm goine for coffee break for a 1/2 hour and I come back and check my post to see some real helpful replies. Thanks so much for the tips. I really appreciate it. Thanks for the offer, Trinity. I'll likely be taking you up on that. Hopefully soon.

If anyone also has any advise as to how to proceed in the melee aspect of my fighter/wizard build, I would appreciate that as well. I understand that staying with light armor is the most effective in order to be able to cast spells at their best potential. Is Hand-to-Hand viable as a fighter/wizard? I decided on this to retain magic amplifiers I may attain in the future. Any opinions on this?

Before buying the game, I had heard that the SoR community is really helpful and I'm very happy to see how true it is. If anyone has anymore words of wisdom, I'd love to hear them. Thanks, again.

[ummadnaz]

Well it doesn't matter because amplifiers are related to your wisdom and not your strength. So you can have 100 strength and 50 wisodom that would not mean that you can use a Q110 amplifier, in this case you can only use Q60.