New player looking for some advice

[cronnis2]

Hallo all!

I am a new player to SoR. I've played other MMORPGs, but this is my first time stepping into this one.

The game is beautiful, and I love how one can pretty much completely customize their character's stats & skills.

Right now I am playing a Zorai "mage." I'm trying out all of the different skills (magic, melee fighting, harvesting & crafting) to get a general feel for the game, but I am running into a bit of a problem.

As I am increasing in skill with my magic (and melee), the experience I receive for fighting the Suckling Yubos is diminishing (of course). What I am running into is that I can't fight anything tougher. It seems that 1) they regenerate too quickly, and 2) less than half of my spells land on them (I get interrupted or they flat out save against them). When I cast Fear or Root, they last for what seems less than 3 seconds (without me taking any other actions) and so I cannot get away from the critter before I become a chew toy.

Due to my work hours, I play very late in the evening....later than most other US players. Because I don't have the option of selecting a different server, I can't go to the European (English) server to play when there would be more people so I could group.

After killing a hundred or so Suckling Yubos, combat is getting kind of boring. Any suggestions? (BTW, I have both Acid & Cold, plus Root, Fear, and (Self) Healing. Also, I have increased my Health & Strength, and am wearing Light Armor bought off of the trader - haven't gotten to making my own armor yet.)

[xcomvic]

magic in the early lvls sucks unless you are grouping.

here are some tips though:

increase your melee 10 or so lvls, this will let you get more hp for your toon.

get the highest quality LIGHT ARMOR you can buy with the max HP on it... or you can go the sap route, but HP for low lvls is kill in soloing...

dont forget the jewelry also.

[roninpvp]

You may have more look finding groups at your time on the mainland where the player population is probably larger than the starting island. Also equipment from the NPC's are very poor compared to good player made gear.

[stead]

Welcome fellow Zorai!

I am also still on noob island but what I have found is that your character at this stage really needs to be half fighter and half mage. Because the MOBs run so fast towards you when attacked you need a good melee weapon to finish them off. I suspect all you have is a dagger so mine some minerals, save your money and buy a good weapon that is both fast and deals good damage. You may want to consider a new character if all you skill points have been spent on mage skills.

You can switch quickly between weapons by clicking on the hand icon box on the far right in your spell bar. Also I found that medium armor doesn't really weaken your spells at this level so go for those for at least some parts after you have a good weapon. Even a good weapon doesn't degrade the spells much.

Are you using those magic magnifier gloves? Those really improve the power of your spells but so far on our island I have only found on the market those for level 10 spells or less.

As for spells just concentate on one for max damage and increase your health and sap stats. The Kiten on the island are immune to acid. I have heard they are immune to cold as well.

MagnaMystic - Zorai

[cronnis2]

Thanks for the replies so far, it is appreciated.

Just to give a bit more info - I started with all 3 packs being magic; I've used the skill points from magic to get more spells (self heal, self sap heal, cold dmg), and increase sap regen; for melee, I used the points to obtain basic harvesting, increase health (x2), hp regen (x2), and strength, as well as to get the next step up from the basic attack; from the skill points obtained from harvesting I picked up basic crafting, prospecting, and prospecting for fine materiels.

For weapons, I only have those gloves that amplify magic that a "mage" will start off with. And for armor, as stated before, I only have the light armor that you can get from those beginning traders (tho I am looking forward to making better armor).

As to the comment of kitin on the islend being immune to acid and possibly cold - this does not make sense. How is a (Zorai) mage supposed to do any type of damage then? They start off with acid and can only pick up cold (from what I've seen so far). Can anyone verify this? Otherwise why make the creatures that characters (mages) are supposed to fight - in the beginning area, no less - immune to what skills they are required to use?

[hklown]

As for the acid and cold thing, Only the kipees are immune to cold ( they had em on tryker island, dont know about zorai).

Also, are you still using the starting amp? Cause if you are, you should get a new one- the starting one isnt very good at all

[cronnis2]

Also, are you still using the starting amp? Cause if you are, you should get a new one- the starting one isnt very good at all

I can understand that...hehe...unfortunately, I can't trek it to the next "town" without having to duke it out with a critter I can't beat. Hence, the request for advice.

[thurgond]

Several pieces of advice:

Make a new action for your acid that uses only Sap, no range or time penalities. This spell will have the maximum range of 50 meters. Target a yubo (if you have increased melee and hits including self heal you should be able to take a weaning yubo). Right click on your compass and set the target to the yubo. This will give you the range. Back up till you are at 48-50 meters and start nuking with your new long range spell. When the yubo gets about half the way to you start using the close range spell. A suckling yubo will normally drop dead before he gets to you if you are using acid 1 and the newbee amp. A weaning yubo will need a couple punches or more nukes but yield much more in experience. From max range a nuke, nuke, nuke, fear, nuke, nuke, fear etc. should work as well.

As soon as you can, buy Acid 2 and a player made amplifier. These will do much more damage and enable you to take most critters on the newbee isle. Kitin are imune to acid but weak to cold. They have many more hp than other critters on the isle, so you will have a hard time killing them with magic alone, even with Acid 3 and a good amp.

Run plenty of missions for cash they are much easier and more plentiful on the isle than the mainland. When you've done the ones you want in one city, take a delivery mission to the next city and do the ones there. Once you are about lvl 20 in an offensive skill and can kill most things on the isle, these missions and accumulating a little dapper (100k+) are the only reason to stay on the isle. Cities of Intuition (the 50 and under zone for Zorai) is friendly to the young with agro in limited areas.

Welcome to the blue side.

--- Miss Narr

[usinuk]

What I am running into is that I can't fight anything tougher. It seems that 1) they regenerate too quickly, and 2) less than half of my spells land on them (I get interrupted or they flat out save against them). When I cast Fear or Root, they last for what seems less than 3 seconds (without me taking any other actions) and so I cannot get away from the critter before I become a chew toy.

Ok, some basic suggestions for mage newbie island survival, or at least to fight something besides suckling yubos. The devs have just made the entire learning process for this game ridiculously hard for newbies - the manual and intro quest writers in particular should be shot - but fortunately you're a in a nice welcoming community of players, so feel free to ask away.

1. Stop leveling magic and level melee early on instead if you want to be a mage. Yep, I know, sacrilege, but here's why.

a. You need the Hit Points.As a mage, you can only advance the stat, Constitution, that raises your HP once every 10 levels. As a melee fighter you can advance HP once every five levels. If you get up to level 20 in melee - which shouldn't take you all that long - you can have the same HP that a level 40 mage would. At level 25, you'd have 400 base HPs, which is enough for close combat with almost anything on newbie island and equivalent to a level 50 pure mage.

b. You're going to likely need to kill stuff with weapons once in a while. As you noted, sometimes your spells will bounce off and something will decide to engage you. If you have a few increase damage and accurate attack stanzas, close combat with a melee weapon will kill off the stuff you're having problems with as a mage very quickly.

Once you hit level 20 or 25 in melee, then start leveling magic again. Another few tips for once you start doing magic again.

2. Fight weanling yubos for levels 10-15 or so. They don't hit that hard but give decent exp, and are close enough to town so that if you are in trouble you can run reasonably close to a guard.

3. Buy sap crystal early on and enchant fear on your amp. What happens if you can cast fear from your amp is that you generally will get off another one off instantaneously even if there's a failure; this helps a lot when something is right next to you making you into a chew toy. Oh, if you are using a bar besides skill bar 1, you can drag 'use item' from the melee action skill tree ('a') to the skill bar. It helps.

4. Spend 20k on someone to make you a q20 amp out of choice amber (or learn to craft/harvest to make it yourself.) The difference between the default amp and one made out of choice mats is astounding...your spells will hit a lot harder and mobs will die a lot quicker. Acid 2 (which with cold 2 you should buy asap) with a good amp outdoes Acid 4.

5. Create a long range attack spell and make sure not to use time credits in any spell. As suggested elsewhere, an expensive lead-off spell that has 50m range (no range credits, all sap/hp credits) will help you a lot in sniping a target first. Then, as they get closer a 30m range spell works nicely with a nuke/fear combo. One other critical piece of advice - time credits are DEATH for nukers. Any delay will get you killed, so make sure to redo all your spells in the skills bar to take them out. Never use em in a spell (unless you're enchanting it, but that's magery 201.)

As far as other equipment, while the extra 100 hps/sap from bonused q20 light armor or 200 from q20 jewelry would be nice, the prices they go for on newbie island are just not worth wasting your hard earned dappers on, especially once you get to the mainland and probably get a q80-100 set for the same price.

One final piece of advice: if you don't really care about offense, its a lot easier to come over to the mainland early and level healing magic in a group. But it sounds like you do, so that's my best mage solo survival advice. Your choice of spending your initial skill points looks good, by the way. And, incidentally, kipees resist acid and are completely vulnerable to cold.

Good luck!

[cronnis2]

Thanks a lot for those last bits of advice!

It is greatly appreciated!