Posts made by Yalah

Day 3 Results:

TLDR: We found what Mace Fighting is good at. A little under 6 hours, 190k KP, Rank 32, 36k in the bank. Both Groko areas, Bandits, and finished up with Termidians. All POI and all monsters to 100%. Warlock Glove and Mace recipes. Pyromancy and Venomancy Orbs. (Not counted in the gold total.) END TLDR

I said in the plan for today that Mace Fighting seemed to be targeted towards AOE farming and that proved true as you'll see from the numbers from today. I started with with a Forest Troll test for the new build. I could handle 3 with little issue and at that point I knew I was going to blast the lower level areas.

I Started with and finished the southern Groko area and my limit was basically whatever I could pull to my location. I kept Protection From Poison off until I needed it. It probably would have been easier to just use Cure Poison since I had that skill anyway. Either of the Poison removal teas would have worked too. (I was too lazy to change it.) After I finished southern Groko, I swapped Concussive Strike out for Bloodlust. I found that 3 points into Mana Regen was a good balance and started putting the rest into Crit Chance/Damage.

Bandits were up next and my limit was still just about whatever I could pull to me. I was still smart about pulling where I'd focus mages and archers first and position so that my AOE was hitting everything. I did die once when I got a lag spike right as I jumped a fire mage pack. I then went to the northern Groko area where I mostly rode through for the POI, only stopping to 100% a few things I needed. At this stage I was only 4 hours in and decided to head to Termidians.

On my way, I finished off the small island Bandit POI (that I totally didn't forget existed) and went to Termidians. I would have used Protection from Acid instead of Poison, if I'd gotten it on Aerhen before coming to Terra. It would have been a nice quality of life improvement and saved me from my one death when I got a little over zealous with a Termidian Matron and about 5 larva all at once. Other than the Matrons, my limit was basically everything I could pull to me.

Bloodlust with Glass Barrier and Barbed Skin worked well, but I'm not certain I needed it with the 1000 Evasion on a Leather set (and 11 encumbrance). Dropping any of those for one solid healing spell and I think I would have been just fine. I did not use Split Earth at all, even to test. Everything was going very smoothly and I didn't feel like stopping to test it. The 24 second cooldown does concern me though.

I plan to use this build for all the AoE farming that I can think of. I will test Split Earth as well. I do not think this build will hold up against tougher monsters that I need to kill one at a time, but we'll see.

I ended the day using these skills:

And I finished with these talents:

I ended Day 3 after 6 hours (20 total), with 190k KP, Rank 32, and 36k in the bank. Plus Warlock Glove and Mace recipes. Pyromancy and Venomancy Orbs. (Not counted in the gold total.)

Day 3 Plans:

TLDR: 100% Groko and both of their POI. If time remains head towards Bandits for the same. I will experiment with a couple of different builds to see if Mace Fighting is worth it. END TLDR

The description for today is pretty basic. Start at the bottom level POIs and work my way up. Both Groko camps into Bandits if I have time.

While I am not a huge fan of Mace Fighting, so far, the skills, and even the Quarterstaff, do lend themselves towards AOE farming. Powering through these camps of low level monsters might be the place where they shine. I plan to start out with a Mace Fighting heavy build and see how it goes.

I think this is what I will start out with for the low level farming and I will make adjustments from there.

Glass Barrier is not a WIS based skill and it is not a lot of damage, but it is an AOE and this build is specifically for farming weaker monsters. Any of the various Cloak of <element> spells would have the same basic purpose (but will no offer the synergy talked about in the next paragraph). Verdant Regrowth covers bleeds and Protection from Poison will cover those. Both are very common effects on Terra. When you don't need Protection from Poison, toggle it off.

The only known change I will try is swapping Bloodlust in for Concussive Strike. I will get this either from Groko Warriors (60) or Sproutlings (80). The reason we can try this is because Glass Barrier and Barbed Skin both apply bleeds. It should work, but I don't know that it will actually be good. Bandit Leaders will teach Split Earth (100). I'll also test this out.

Additional skills I'm looking for, but probably not seeking out, yet. (From monsters I could fight today):
From Bandits: Globe of Spell Protection, Protection from Fire/Cold/Electricity.
Grokoton Sage: Mass Cure Wounds (40), Shatter Wards (60), Globe of Spell Protection (80)
Battle Jump: Giant Bullfrog (50) and Forest Troll (80) (I probably should have gotten this from Wolf Spiders on Aerhen).
Challenge: Groko Chieftan (80)

I'm starting the day with the following talents. Based on testing, I am planning on keeping the first 1-4 mana regen nodes and then I will probably move into crit.

One final note: The conditions today is where I expect Mace Fighting to excel. If it does not do so today, then I'm probably going to look at dropping it. I may drop it anyway. If I do drop it, I'd end up going Sword, Fencing, or Daggers. And then with or without a shield. I have not thought about it in great detail yet.

Day 2 Results:

TLDR: It was a mess. 8 hours on Day 2, 85k KP, rank 21, ~9k in the bank. I basically spent a huge chunk of time running around to various locations due to poor planning. I did get a full new set of gear and imbues to match. I also picked up some good skills to help me in the future. END TLDR

Edit: In Hindsight, I probably should not have built my house on Day 1. The markets are good enough that I could have just bought everything and been fine going into day 2. Building the house on Day 1 took up time I could have used farming and caused me to spend a lot of time and gold (harbors) coming and going from the house on both days. I don't think it is wrong to build a house so early, but keep in mind that it's going to be a big chunk of time invested.

Today was a shitshow worthy of legend and it was all my poor planning. I'm going to cut most of that out and try to just stick with important stuff, but know that these 8 hours should have been 5-6 tops. This will be a long one, I've tried to cut it down without skipping events that matter.

I started the day by checking the cost of various items (leather sets, Ironwood, imbue materials, and so on) both on Aerhen and Terra. I decided that even though leather sets were dirt cheap on Terra, I would run a batch of 40 leather at my house to "save some money" and hunt down some final skills I wanted on Aerhen while that was happening (2 hours to process). From here until the end of the day, I basically used the same skills from the 2nd of Day 1. I put my talents into finishing the Mana Regen nodes and then got Armor Penetration.

At this point I still had my Hide Set, basic Quarterstaff, and talents from the end of Day 1. I set out to kill Moose and Polar Bears around my house for the hide and a bear head for a helmet and got my leather going. I also killed Vampiric Spiders to get Life Drain (60). Then I decided I wanted to try killing a Jotunn Cleric because they teach Physical Recovery (60) which isn't a great heal, but it does remove most physical debuffs which can be pretty handy. I think I probably could have killed them, but it would have been close and was slow. I gave up and on my way to the nearest Harbor spotted a couple Elder Mountain Trolls.

Elder Mountain Troll teach Resonating Blow (20) and Aura of Oppression (40). I knew I would want both of these eventually so I decided to give them a try. It was slow, but I managed to kill 2 of them. I really wanted to head to Terra once my Leather was ready so I decided to finish off the trolls once I get to Terra. My main goal, before going to Terra, was to get Protection from Poison from Goblin Death Shamans (40). This is where I started to go wrong.1

When I got to the Harbor, I decided to go to the southern Goblin POI, "because there might be less people." After the boat, instead of being focused on my goal, I was still in "Day 1 mode." I stopped to gather random stuff that sold well, stopped to kill random monsters, etc. That's fine, but I was trying to stick to a time limit so I should have skipped all of that. I did get Mana Drain (60) from Black Widows.

Southern Goblins POI was packed. I was getting KP, but not from what I wanted. I decided to collect the southern POI and go to the north camp where I knew of a good set of spawns for the Goblin Death Shamans. Again, I was in Day 1 mode. I went way out of my way to stop at cities to try and sell stuff, etc etc. It took forever to finally hit the northern POI. I got Protection from Poison (40) from the Death Shamans and I also got Cure Poison (60) and Empower (80) From Goblin Medics. I gathered the POI northern Goblin POI. At this point in time, I should have went directly from Northern Goblins to the Stargate, but instead I went back to my house for that f'ing 40 leather, "to save money."

Northern Goblins -> Harbor -> House (40 leather and a Bear head) -> Harbor -> Stargate. To save money on items that were being sold at or below cost on Terra. Poor Planning. At 3.5 hours I caught the Stargate to Terra (I barely had to wait so that was good). I had 60k KP at this point.

Terra:
My plan on getting to Terra was to buy 4 Ironwood boards (750 each) and the reagents I needed for imbues. Then find a place where I could craft my leather set, quarterstaff, and do my imbues. Because I needed all of the KP from plants and such, I decided to just ride to the city with the wood so I could get KP from resources and monsters. I did target Sproutlings to get Barbed Skin (40). This took a long time, but I don't think it was wasted. You need those KP and it helped me collect some reagents that I would not have to buy.

During this time I got Spine Breaker Blow from Bandit Ruffians (80) and Shimmering Sphere (60) from Archmage Outcasts. I then switched up my skills to the following and got Resonating Blow (20) and Aura of Oppression (40) from Elder Mountain Trolls and then Glass Barrier (80) from Obsidian Crabs.

(You'll notice a lack of Mace Fighting skills.)

I tried two different cities before I found someone present that would make me a (temporary) citizen so I could do the crafting (I'm not sure they knew it was temporary, heh). This is where I hit the first problem on Terra. I didn't have Primitive Quarterstaff up to 2/4 -> a bunch of time spent doing that. I knew they wouldn't give me Trusted Citizen status to use the imbuing table so I left the city (physically and as a citizen) Luckily I found someone on their nearby plot that gave me (knowingly temporary) access to their imbuing table for 1.8k (which is what I had on me).

This is the gear and reagents I used.

Armor:
T2 Mana Regen: Anthuruim, Anthurium, Bluth Sparks, Primordial Dust, Bitterleaf.
T2 Evasion: Beast Blood, Heavy Dust, Passion Flower Stems, Storm Essence, Mandrake Root
Weapon:
T2 Life Steal: Necrotic Bone, Boar Tusk, Living Wood, Troll Liver, Frog Tongue.
T2 Critical Chance: Angel's Trumpets, Animal Bone, Animal Bone, Termidian Bile, Wolfsbane
Necklace:
T2 Strength: Quicksilver, Mandrake, Troll Liver, Heavy Dust, Holy Water.
T2 Evasion: Beast Blood, Heavy Dust, Passion Flower Stems, Storm Essence, Mandrake Root

Mana Regen is so I can drop the talent points from there to something more damage related. Life Steal is for some sustain, STR is obvious. Crit Chance is for more damage. I chose Evasion (T2 gives 200) basically because I feel like my damage is lacking. What it will do is allow me to cut out some healing spells and add more damage/utility back onto my hotbar. In theory anyway.

I was getting very close to the end of the day, but I decided to put a build together and see what I could handle.

The above is not optimal in any way. Do not copy it. I was tired and throwing shit at the wall, there are obvious mistakes/improvements. That being said, I was able to solo kill Colossal Huskworms, Wild Behemuts, Arboreal Dragonlings, Treants, and every treehugger Ogre besides Witch (need more magic defense) and Archdruid (did not try). Killing was very slow. Do not copy. It will not be fun. I am only including it because it did work.

I ended Day 2 after 8 hours (14 total), with 85k KP, rank 21, and about 9k in the bank. My first real gear upgrade is complete and I'm in a good spot to really bang out some KP gains.

Day 2 Plans:

TLDR: Pick up a couple of handy/important skills from Aerhen before going to Terra for an extended stay. 100% Bandits and their POI then head to Groko's and try to clear as much as possible. Try to pickup a couple of Mace skills to see if it improves the feel of using maces. Make an alt and run it out to the my house on Aerhen so that it can cycle my charcoal pit while I am on Terra. END TLDR

I felt like Day 1 was slow, but for the time spent farming, it wasn't. I'd like to try to get some more of the Mace skills to see if they feel better and improve the gameplay for me. In terms of farming, I need to focus on bandits to get the mace skills from them (among other skills). If you have newbie protection, I would suggest you just stay on Aerhen and go through both bandit camps to get their POI and gain knowledge. For you, there's no reason to go to Terra yet. I'm going to go to Terra because I don't have the newbie protection and I'm highly confident that any red with a brain cell could kite this build out with absolutely nothing I could do to escape or kill them.

Whatever choice you make is fine and it wont matter too much in the long term. Either way, before moving on to Bandits, or to Terra, I would suggest you get Protection from Poison from the Goblin Death Shamans (40). If you don't want to do this, Bloodvein Tea (Aerhen) or Arnica Tea (Terra) will clear poisons.

One last thing, whenever you do choose to go to Terra, you should run an alt out to your house so that they can handle whatever is going on there while you're on the other world. For me that means cycling my Charcoal Pile so I can build up some Wood Tar without having to travel back and forth.

Mace Skills:

• Spine Breaker Blow can be gained from Bandit Ruffians or Elder Mountain Trolls at 80, but we'll just get it from the bandit because it's easier and will be done first anyway.
• Split Earth can most easily be gained from Bandit Leaders at 100.
• Resonating Blow is only available on Terra and Elder Mountain Troll is probably the best target since it give it as 20 and gives Aura of Oppression at 40.

I don't have high hopes given the long cooldowns on these abilities, but I'm going to give them a try. In addition to Mace skills, I would not mind getting Protection from Acid from Skeletal Mages (40) for Terra. I do want more skills than this (and what bandits give), but I highly doubt I will have enough time to get them today.

On Gear:
I would like to get a Leather Set going, with Bear helm, and have a backup Quarterstaff. I also want to get some Mana regen imbues, a STR neck imbue, and a life or mana leech for the staves. I can do all of this at my house, before Terra, but it's going to depend on what is available in the Aerhen markets that are close enough to be worth going to. I might try out some more imbues, while still avoiding proficiency imbues since I think those will be nerfed and thus not useful for a long term, Not a Guide. If I can't find/buy stuff on Aerhen, I'll just buy it on Terra.

On Talents:
If the Mana Regen imbues feel good, I'm probably going to go down Armor Pen or Crit for more damage.

I really was not prepared to go to Terra so early so I don't have targeted skills planned out for there. I do know that I will be killing any Sproutling that I see to get Barbed Skin (40). In fact, I may specifically target them first thing. On not planning skills, I think I will be okay because Bandits will eat up enough time that I can plan for Terra skills later.

Day 1 Results:

TLDR: 4 hours of farming and 2 of house building for 6 total hours. 40k KP, rank 13, and 3k left in the bank. Felt slow, but comparable numbers to the Gladiator which felt "way better than expected." Picked up a Quarterstaff, some miscellaneous loot, and four skills that I swapped in. No loot worth mentioning. END TLDR

I'd really like to complain about how bad Day 1 went, but based on my Gladiator Not a Guide, it went just as well, but it felt suuuuuuuuuper slow. The Druid starts with Sprouting Pulse (root) and Crushing Roots (damage to rooted) and they feel terrible to use. The root is AoE in a line, which can be good, but as a new character, fighting multiple mobs at once is pretty rough. Crushing Root sounds good, but it's single target and you're very lucky if you can get two casts of it off per use of your root.

Verdant Regrowth is a very good regen skill that also makes you immune to bleeds. Heavy Blow is a toggle skill that is passive damage. Crushing Assault is your one mace ability. It's not bad if you're fighting groups of mobs, but it's kinda terrible against a single target. All this means that you're going to spend a whole lot of time doing nothing but auto attacks. My advice is find skills to replace basically all of the starting ones as soon as you can. Gripe over, back to the results...

Made a full Hide set in the tutorial. Post tutorial, I immediately checked the market in the starter town (I picked north) for buy orders that paid well. I also checked for the prices around Aerhen for a Quarterstaff (Using the Find / Buy Item tab). I went horse hunting east, but I ran into some Bandits almost immediately. I farmed them a quick 40g needed to buy a horse and returned to town. From here on out, I just kept everything I found in my inventory except for gold that I banked when I could.

Remember to collect every different resource at least once to get the knowledge (you don't have to finish, you just need to start it). That's a ton of free KP and it will come much faster than from monsters when you're first starting out.

After I bought my Horse, I rode over to Cactus Keep because it had the cheapest Quarterstaves on Aerhen at 500g. I killed and collected on the way, but was still short so I farmed some materials and goblin chest events in the area until I could buy my quarterstaff. I had about 200g in the bank after buying my staff.

I decided to ride/kill/collect my way over to Yggbrasil, which had crap buy orders. At this point I decided to actually do some research on buy orders before I just rode around. To make a long story short, I headed down towards the southern starter town where the nearby cities were actually paying worthwhile prices for items I was farming (read as, not 1g each).

Got down there and ended up with about 1500g. I was feeling pretty miserable with my Druid starting skills and did not feel like farming goblins until I had some better skills. I decided to pick up the southern Goblin POIs and farm Hunter's Mark from Goblin Trappers (80). It didn't make Druid more fun, but it did stop me from missing so many auto attacks. While I was there I also picked up Cure Wounds. I added both of these to my hotbar.

This put me up around 2500g and I decided to go farm some Bandits while heading for my home's potential location. I basically just killed random bandit spawns and bandit chest events on my way to the harbor. I picked up Mind Strike and Concussive Strike which allowed me to drop those roots and switch my skills to the following:

I am not happy with these skills, but I had 3k gold on me and no excuse not to take a boat and start my house. House building recap sounds about as fun to write as it would to read so lets just say the house it build with everything I need for metal and wood, plus a few extras.

My talents look like so:

I started with Mana Regen until I had enough points to get into the Two handed damage talents. I switched to damage and then went back into mana regen.

I'm still wearing the hide set I started with and my quarterstaff. I ended up at 40k KP, rank 13, and about 3k in gold (The buy orders on Aerhen, at least around the starter towns, were not very good.) I've done no prep for tomorrow!

Day 1 Plan:

TLDR: Make 2k while looking for house plots that might work well for metal with a good number of trees. Trying to 100% Goblins and both their POI. Not rage quitting Druid. End TLDR

I would usually decide if I wanted to just buy crafted gear or craft them myself, but I'm concerned that I wont be able to find enough wood options since they're in less of a demand, and thus less crafted/refined, than metal would be. (They might be even easier since there's less demand.) This makes me think that I might end up with a house sooner rather than later. So...

Looking for a house location: Because I want to use spells and I'm going to give Mace Fighting a serious attempt, my weapon options are limited. The only 2h option I have is Quarterstaff, and my 1h Option is a Mace/Club and a Round Shield. I think the quarterstaff is where I'll end up being because the damage is so much higher and it has better block chance than a 1h and shield. (Quarterstaff will provide less imbue slots compared to 1h/shield). This means wood. The best weapon wood for my build will be Ironwood which is on both planets and is kinda spread around. Meaning my house location, as far as wood goes, is not too important as long as there are a good number of trees around that I can use for Charcoal Pits (Wood Tar).

Since the availability of wood is not super important and I think I might end up in Chainmail, my house options might end up more focused on ore and coal availability. Ideally, I would not craft any Chainmail out of less than Steel or Bronze (everything less takes a hit in durability). Ideally, it would be Blood Iron (more physical resists) or even better Mithril (more magic resists, more durability, and less encumbrance).

I do have a location in mind, but I'll have to see what the open lots look like once I'm in game. Even with a house, buying my equipment is still an option.

Back to the plan: My first real milestone will be 2k for a house and deciding where I want to put it.

The next thing I think about is what abilities I want to focus on. Since WIS spell casting is on the table, I got options. Of note, collecting skills will likely be broken into three categories. Aerhen before Terra, Terra, and Aerhen post Terra. The WIS heavy schools are Abjuration, Illusionism, Necromancy, Restoration, Druidcraft, and Witchcraft. WIS/STR will be Leadership and STR will be Warfare and Mace Fighting.

It's worth noting that I genuinely do not know what build I want by the end of this and I will very likely need to test out various things. In an effort from keep from listing out half the abilities in the game, in this one post, I'm just going to list things that might come up in Day 1 or are otherwise "Aerhen before Terra." You'll have to rely on future posts to see what I find is or is not working.

From Goblins: Bond of Agony, Protection from Poison, Cure Poison, Cure Wounds, Empower, Hunter's Mark.
From Bandits: Globe of Spell Protection, Protection from Fire/Cold/Electricity, Mind Strike, Shimmering Sphere, Relocate, Concussive Strike, Split Earth, Spine Breaker Blow.

Abjuration: Before we go to Terra, it would be good to get Protection from Poison, Goblin Death Shaman (40), and Protection from Acid, Skeletal Mage (40).
Illusionism: Fear is solid if I can kill Crawling Horror (20).
Necromancy: Life Drain, Vampiric Spider (60). Mana Drain, Black Widow/Hatchling (60). I really don't think these are good, but I just want to test them out.
Warfare: Battle Jump, Ghoul/Wolf Spider (40).
Druidcraft: Barbed Skin, Sproutling (40).

There's a fair amount of stuff that we want or might be good, but a huge chunk of it comes right from Goblins and Bandits (and more that I did not list). Both of these we will be getting to 100% on them all. (We might not 100% bandits until we hit Terra.)

This is not a guide or step by step planner. It's just some notes from leveling an alt character that I thought new players might find helpful. I'll go through my thoughts and goals so others can see what I think about and how I decide to progress and rank up. This will be lots of words and is not for everyone (it's not a guide after all). I will include a TLDR on all posts.

This, Not a Guide, will only focus on PvE content as that is what is required to hit rank 50. I'm only focusing on ranking up. If I say a skill is good/useful it's only in the PvE context or to rank up.

TLDR: Human, Druid, with 18 STR/CON/WIS. (You might want to read the reasons for the race in non TLDR.) Trying to stick to Mace Fighting, but we'll see. END TLDR

Introduction: I will not be using any help or items from my other characters so it is a fair representation of a new player starting the game. I will post updates as replies to this thread as I continue forward and go as long as I feel like I'm making progress or until I feel like the only thing left to hit rank 50 is pure grinding. For this Not a Guide, I will not have actual newbie protection, but I will simulate/comment as if I do. If any PvP occurs during the first 40 hours/80k occurs, I'll adjust times and numbers as if the PvP did not happen.

I wont refuse to party with people, but I will try to make sure that if I do, it's someone that is around the same level as I am, and not some uber character just powering me through.

I have just finished the Gladiator version of Not a Guide and I still feel like Mages have pretty good representation in terms of "general community knowledge." I intended my second Not a Guide to be Bowman, but the archery change patch got delayed so I've decided to do Druid. The reason for this is that I feel like it's a very difficult background for truly new people while experienced players can be successful with any of the backgrounds. (I totally didn't get guilted into it.) I'll be able to show people how I think about progression while also demonstrating on what I consider to be a difficult background for totally new players.

For weapons: I will do my very best to stick with Maces, but the only promise that I will give is that I will give them an earnest try before switching out of them, if I do switch. My issue with maces is that I feel like their damage is behind some of the other weapons, but this will be a chance for me to push them and find out.

For stats: Because I want to "stay true" to the initial feel of the Druid background (meaning, I do not want to start as one background and immediately switch to something I know works), there's not a lot of wiggle room on stats. Maces use STR and Druidcraft spells scale off WIS. I don't know how many Druidcraft spells I will actually use, but WIS has a lot of spell options and I will definitely use them.

• CON will help with Bandage healing, and health. That's about it. None of the CON skills are worth it for us when we have WIS. I feel like we're going to be lacking in terms of damage which makes me want CON even more.
• DEX would give attack speed and evasion. The latter being of lesser importance if we end up in Chainmail (which we might).
• INT is an option since we're already committing to having a spell channeling weapon, but I feel like that pushes us into just being a mage.
• PER as a stat, PER gives us crit chance and accuracy for our auto attacks. All of our spells will hit as long as we land them, but Accuracy will still dictate how long many of our debuffs last.

I listed out all of the options because I felt obligated to do so, but in my mind the only choice is CON. I feel like we're going to be low on damage and need the CON to help us hold out. I may try out other options to up my damage, but it's CON for now.

For race: I'm not sure there are clear top choice so I'll list them all out.

• Humans are good because it would allow me a +18 in the three stats that I want while having 8 in the rest. Luck is also a bonus for all combat related rolls. Humans also have two more total attribute points to spend over any of the Wildfolk races. In this specific build, the flexible 18 scores is nice because I may end up respecing at some point pending balancing changes.
• Iridra, at first glance, look like a weaker Human... And they kinda are. I would only be able to get 17 max in STR and CON and 18 in WIS while having 8 in the others. I would only get 50 luck, but I would gain 5 HP and 5 Mana regen as well as the use of Primal Form. Iridra's Primal Form gives +200 mana and health regen for about 10 seconds. They have 5 Primal Form charges which can only be charged on Terra.
• Chadra would allow me 18 in STR and CON, but only a 16 in WIS and also a 6 in INT. A lot of people downplay the "less stats" penalty of the Wildfolk when talking about how OP they are, but when your two less stats are both in mana, you can really feel it if you're doing anything that is mana intensive. I think this is the weakest option.
• Erwydra would get me an 18 WIS, but only a 16 in STR and CON. It would allow me a 10 in INT and the passives of Erwydra are focused on spell casting which is more useful if you wanted to make a more casting focused Druid, but WIS damage spells are more limited.

I don't think Chadra are a good option and I would not take Erwydra because the benefits are not really utilized by our character goal (mostly in that we're not going INT and will have limited spell damage opportunities). Comparing the two remaining: Human will give you 18 STR/CON and 150 Luck versus Iridra with 17 STR/CON, +5 mana/hp regen, 50 Luck, and the Primal Form.

The extra regen is nice, but lessened by Quick Rest. The Primal Form can definitely save your ass, if you remember you have it, but I think the base Human is probably the stronger option. I'm choosing Human.

That's about it for the introduction. From here on out, I'll probably make 1-2 posts a day talking about my general goals and what I actually managed to accomplish.

Not a Guide: Gladiator Background - Postscript:

TLDR: I had time so I put 4x t2 fire imbues on my leather set to test out the elemental clear plan. Worked perfectly with no issues. END TLDR

There was supposed to be a patch with archery improvements and I was going to start a Bowman after that. The patch was delayed so I decided to go ahead and run the Gladiator through an elemental area, with resist imbues, just to confirm that there wouldn't be any major issues.

I decided that fire was the hardest to deal with so I popped on four T2 fire resist imbues, 400 resist each, and went to the volcano on Aerhen. (Bloodvein, Bloodvein, Fire Essence, Goblin tongue, Rogue stone.) I just bought the materials because I'd left my own on Terra. They were not terribly expensive given the cash I'd made so far, but ore importantly they were all available in the northern starter city where I was standing at the time. Less than 2k total. Once again I bought a house plot, built a quick imbue table, and then dropped it after.

No changes to skills or talents from the end of Day 3. Just the fire resistance imbues for gear changes. To make a long story short, the imbues put me over 2k fire resistance, which is the cap, and I blew everything out of the water. I basically ignored warm stacks and burning and just killed anything I ran into. The only time I dropped below ~75% health was on a Greater Fire Elemental that I charged into with 4 primelings around him. They got me to ~40%.

I'm very confident in my plan of leather set + resist imbues to full clear the various elementals (note: you can only have one resist imbue on a single item.) Shock and Frost might not be as smooth as Fire, because of the nature of their debuffs, but as long as no one attacks you while you're mid fight, I don't really anticipate problems.

I picked up all the POI of the Aerhen Volcano and then went up north to farm some furs and wool (for future projects). Maybe 90 minutes worth of time and got up to 207k KP. After buying imbue materials, and paying for boats, I probably only ended up making 2k plus materials (~150 furs and 100 wool). Oh, I did end up dropping my magic defense nodes to get more carry weight - that stuff is heavy.

Not a Guide: Gladiator Background - Conclusion:

As I said earlier, I think this build is currently able to hit rank 50 (421k KP) without further improvements. There is about 300k KP on Terra and about 250k on Aerhen. If we skip the, "hits too hard," and the fire/ice/storm/crystal elementals (and a couple of monsters that just do too much elemental damage), we should be able to 100% everything else while grabbing all of the POI and resources and be good. If I wanted to kill those other monsters anyway, here's how I'd improve the build...

Edit: I compared the KP of my main and this Gladiator. My Glad has 182k KP and can get another 45.5k from exploration and at least another 5.5k from resources. That would put them up to 233k KP without any more creature KP.

The very first thing would be proficiency imbues. I purposefully did not use a single proficiency imbue so I could demonstrate what the base power level is capable of. If proficiency imbues are still available by the time you're reading this, they are a massive damage boost.

Since I've prefaced this by saying that we could hit rank 50 without killing these remaining monsters, I'll assume we have the 60 talents and include those when talking about the different groups.

Since we do not have access to Protection from <element> spells, to kill the various elementals we should be able to make a new leather set with full imbues for each of the elements. Wearing each specific set, the elementals and monsters that use too much elemental damage, should go down without too much problem - none of them are especially tanky. I have not done this myself, but I know people that have and they were fine. Additional Fortitude should help here as well.

For the elementals and talents: I would stick with what Day 3 ended at and fill out the magic defense talents (and 2nd point on CON). You should be sitting pretty at this point. There's not a lot more offense we could get out of talents so I'd probably go for Thick Skinned/Natural Shield then HP or Fort.

You shouldn't need any significant skill changes for these. There's not much that would actually help.

For the monsters that hit too hard, there are some options. The most obvious change is to get a chain or plate set made of Blood Iron (increased physical defenses) or Mithril (less encumbrance). Because of our limited healing capabilities, I don't know which would be enough to get the job done. I've simply not tried these highest level monsters without healing capabilities. If we stick with Chain, we can continue to rely on Hunter's Mark. If we go to plate, I'd start thinking about getting some Accuracy so our Bloodlust is still providing heals.

For shit that hits too hard and talents: You can drop the magic defense and put it all into health and Thick Skinned/Natural Shield then if you got anything left, Fort.

For skills... I can't say for certain what would or wouldn't work. It's something I'd have to test to see if it was worth it. The three starter Axe skills feel like enough damage so I wouldn't drop them or add to them. For new skills:

Challenge could help, but it cannot be used with Hunter's Mark (If you've gone to plate, this would be less of a problem). WIS makes this much better.
Inspire gives a lot of defensive stats, but needs WIS to be really effective and have uptime
Intimidate lets us apply the Frightened debuff which is a great debuff. It requires WIS to have any real uptime.

Did you notice the theme?

Until now we've been a melee damage dealer and then a melee damage dealer that is kinda tanky. If we want to push our tank to the max, we gotta consider maxing WIS (either by respect or imbues/potions/whatever). Increasing the power on the above skills is more tank - either on flat numbers or by having much better uptime. If we end up dropping PER to get WIS, we'll notice the damage loss.

STR/CON/WIS as a full tank axe user is not a build that I've personally tried so I cannot say exactly how it would perform. Keep that in mind.

Second to last, you can go 1h and a shield, but I don't think this is more solo viable than a 2h. You're going to lose a ton of damage.

Some final options would be to upgrade to Cotton Bandages (3x con verus 2x on linen). Alchemy Potions when they come out (but this is probably too expensive.

Ogre Lord, Jotunn Stormborn, Wild Behemut (and Ridge when it's added again), plus the three big dragons (Arboreal, Ember, and Mountain - in that order) are probably the toughest non-legendary monsters out there. I would not expect to solo them and if you do solo them, expect your build to get nerfed if a GM sees it.

That's about all I can think of. If you have any questions about this specific build, I'll watch and can try to answer them. I'm pretty confident that what has been shown here can hit rank 50 without any real issues from this point.

For other questions about the game, #player-help on the Discord is a good place for questions.

I'll probably start another, Not a Guide tomorrow. I'm leaning towards Bowman, but we'll see how it goes.

Day 3 Results:

TLDR: Today was about 5 hours. I ended at rank 32, with 182k Knowledge Points, and 36k in the bank. Today went as expected. I finished the Crit talents, put a second point into PER, and then started putting points into magic defense. I also ended the day using Aura of Oppression more. Full Cleared Termidians and got all the POI in both Ogre areas of Terra. I also tested killing a bunch of the stronger monsters in the game (it went well). Nothing notable from drops. I intend to call this project a success and move on to the next one. END TLDR

Basically, no changes to the build from the previous day. By the end of the day, I did work in Aura of Oppression more, but I'll talk about that later. Today I waded into the stronger side of PvE and you should assume that I spammed bandages and used Hunter's Mark on anything that took more than one rotation of skills to kill (which was basically everything except the weakest Termidians).

Termidians went well to easy except for the Matrons. Spitters will knock off your Bloodlust so keep an eye on that. Acid is a debuff that we have no way of dealing with so you also want to keep an eye on that. When you are killing Matrons, they will knock you around with their Eruption ability. Make sure that you clear the area, do not get any adds, and let your corrosion stacks drop off. Even a single Larva will be enough to make this a very close fight. As long as I got them alone and had no adds, I killed them with 25-50% health left. Do not be afraid to reset. I did it several times.

After Termidians, I decided to target the higher level monsters and see how well I could manage against them. As a general rule, I tried to kill 2-4 of them to make sure I wasn't just getting good RNG, but I did not bother farming any of them. This was the point where I dropped Execute and popped in Aura of Oppression. I don't think I needed it for most stuff, but I already had it memorized and was too lazy to try a bunch of stuff when I basically was not failing.

I was able to kill all of the Treehugger Ogres, including the Archdruid. The Archdruid was a close fight. More magic defenses would have made them easier, but they were still dead at the end of it. Ogre Witches were not easy and would have been easier with the same extra magic defenses. I did collect all the POI from this area.

I was able to kill all of the Industrial Ogres except the Ogre Master and Ogre Lord. The Master just does too much Fire damage and I have no way to deal with that currently (more on this in the final post). I knew Ogre Lords would wreck me and they did not disappoint. It was not even close. I did collect all the POI from this area.

Miscellaneous monsters on Terra:
Colossal Huskworms - They are immune to bleeds, but Bandage spam got them fine. Anything with Bleed Immunity will be harder than otherwise so keep that in mind.
Obsidian Crabs - I swapped in Call of Tenacity to deal with their bleeds and they were pretty easy.
Arboreal Dragonlings - I had Arnica Tea on hand and they were very easy.
Mountain Dragonlings - Tough, but doable. Never had to reset.
Ember Dragonlings - Somewhere between the other two Dragonlings.
Wild Behemut - hit far too hard. Not a chance.
All 3 big Dragons - didn't even bother. From prior experience, they would be too hard.
All Trolls - easy
Earth Elementals - easy
Forge Snapper and Fire elementals - too much fire damage. (More on this in the final post.)

Edit: I forgot about Acid Elementals. The small ones would definitely be no problem and I think I could do the greaters as long as I watched my acid stacks before going in.

I think that's kills or attempts at every monster on Terra.

At this point I was ready to head to Aerhen. My Bear Claw Necklace had degraded at this point, my armor was ~90/350, and I still had the second axe I made earlier. The gear that I had would have been fine for what I planned, but I went ahead and got a new set anyway so that I could wear a new set into Aerhen instead of taking a replacement set in my inventory.

I decided to use Reptile Leather for the 3 Leather pieces so that it would have more durability and last a bit longer. I could not find any Leather pieces made of Reptile leather so I shopped around and bought the refined leather and crafted the pieces myself. It was all Poor quality, but I spent less than 2k to do it plus buy a replacement bear head. I put all the same enchants on them as I did on Day 1 (and this time I had all the materials needed from farming).

My goal heading into Aerhen was to target all the strongest non-elemental monsters (elementals talked about in the final post). I skipped the undead because other than the Dragon and Spider Lich, none are remotely hard. I also skipped Sea Trolls because I knew they would be easy. Both Mammoths went down without too much hassle. Wolves and bears posed, also, no problem. That basically leaves the Jotunn. All of them went down without too much trouble, except for the Jotunn Stormborn. They hit like a truck and I wasn't even close to getting them.

I finished today after about 5 hours (16 total), at rank 32, with 182k Knowledge Points, and 36k in the bank. (Still no house.) I'm also going to say that this, Not a Guide, is going to be shelved because I'm very comfortable that the build is at a point that it could easily hit rank 50 without any serious modifications (read as, just by more grinding).

There are two main categories of things that I cannot currently solo: Hits too hard and too much elemental damage. If you farm out all the rest of the KP (total, there is about 300k on Terra and 250k on Aerhen) you should be able to hit rank 50, 421k KP, without killing the stuff I skipped by maxing the other stuff and hitting all the POI and resources. I am going to do one more post after this where I talk about how I would improve upon the build from this point and maybe finish off some of those harder things.

One last talents pic:

Glad you're liking it. I hope it's helping people with thinking about progress.

I think my next one will be an Bowman start, but we'll see.

Day 3 Plan:

TLDR: Maxing Termidians and getting all of their POI. Then I need to decide if I want to head to Ogres or go to Aerhen. I'm not sure which. I need to continue to think about a house location if any. END TLDR

The plan for today is pretty short. For sure, Termidians to 100% then either Ogre or Aerhen. I might give Ogre a try to see how they go and if it's not bad, get the POI and probably finish the 100% on them later. Aerhen has a ton of very easy KP out there for my build and it's hard to delay that for, "maybe Ogres will be good enough to clear." We will just have to see how I'm feeling.

I do not foresee any changes to gear or skills today. If Ogre are too much, I will just leave and I don't think I'd have enough time on Aerhen, After Termidians, to get into anything difficult. If this were my first character, I would probably be putting more effort into getting the KP from all of the random monsters out in the wilds (i.e. not in POIs). I have been popping them when I've been collecting materials, but I'm definitely not doing it as much as I did on my first character. My goal on this character is to hit rank 50 or at least get it to the point where I can say, "this character is fully strong enough to hit rank 50, it's just time grinding more to 100%."

One thing I might do before, going to Aerhen, is just ride around collecting the red POI (that are not in Ogres). That's a lot of knowledge just sitting there and I can also try killing various things in those areas to show that they can be killed by my build.

For talents, I'm going to finish the Crit Damage node and get the extra perception and then I'm not sure. Not a lot of options left to help me offensively and I'm nearing the point where magic defenses might be important. I'm leaning towards that to help keep me in leather armor for as long as possible. I may end up in a Plate Set before the end of the day - I do have money to buy a good one and pop enchants on it.

At some point in time, I do want to get Crushing Shout, Hack & Slash, and Decimate (all on Aerhen), if for nothing else than to just try em out. It might not be on Day 3 tho.

Day 2 Results:

TLDR: I ended day 2 after a little over 5 hours at rank 26, with 126k Knowledge Points, and 24k in the bank. Another day way better than expected. Other than Talents (there will be a pic below) I've made no changes to the build. Full Cleared the north Groko camp (mostly rode thru) and then cleared all the Bandit POI and 100% all bandits. Still no house and no plans for one yet. I got four orbs and two recipes from divines. END TLDR

Before Day 2 starts, I want to add something from yesterday. Whenever I'm riding around, if I find a Primal Crystal that I think is out of the way and not many people will show up to, I collect the first set and then find stuff to farm locally while waiting for respawns. Not super important, but it's something you can do to help with Energy Crystals. I'm somewhere around 100 saved now.

I made no changes to skills or equipment today from the end of Day 1. I did change talents, more on that soon.

I decided to try a mana leech imbue, for science, but it turns out you're limited to one leech per weapon so I skipped trying mana leech. Per the plan, I went strait or Ogre Watchers. On the first one I forgot to use my new axe with HP leech and I still had mana regen talents from Day 1. I died, but my bleed dot killed it. For the second try I swapped out to my new axe, but kept the mana regen talens. I killed it with bandage spam and has about 15% health left. I decided to drop all my mana regen nodes and picked up all the Armor Penetration that I could get. Killed the 3rd with bandage spam and 50% health left. On the 4th I dropped Execute and added Aura of Oppression. It helped, some, but my wisdom is 8, the radius sucks, and Ogre Watchers do knockbacks.

I dropped the Aura, got Ogre Watchers to 40%, and promptly left per the plan. (On the way out I easily killed a greater earth elemental.) I went strait to the northern Groko camp and basically just rode thru it to get the POI. I did stop to kill Chieftains and Sages, but it was pretty quick. My next destination was Bandits, but on the way I found a Frog Legendary and decided to give it a try. It spammed acid, which is cancer, and I ran away 3 times while getting it to various levels of 20-50%. Finally I was able to bravely die to it when it had like 3 pixels of health left. When I got back up I popped it and got my rewards (gold and dust). I forgot about my Primal Form. I would have beat it first shot if I wasn't dumb.

After that I went to Bandits. I should be arrested for the crimes I committed against them. Basically everything but the Leaders when down in 3 hits and nothing was remotely a challenge. It was, by far, the easiest time I've ever had against bandits. Massacre does not begin to cover it. I was routinely pulling 2-4 and or chain-pulling and the only time I got in trouble, I remembered my Primal Form, and was totally fine. I did focus Mages -> Rogues/bows -> the ones that have a skullcap and atrophy you. My mana regen was excellent and I basically just bandage spammed while non-stop slaughtering them. The only time I died was when a Emerald (poison) Huskworm was hiding behind a wall and slapped 100 stacks of poison on me. I would have live, but I forgot I had my Primal Form >.<

Bandits are gonna drop you two useful and or important items. Bitterleaf Tea restores some energy and can save you in a pinch. Arnica Tea will clear poison. (They also drop the raw leaves for each.) Keeping Bitterleaf is up to you. Keep Arnica. We will use it later because we don't really have any poison clears.

I guess the only other thing is to say that I ended up with 4 orbs and 2 recipes which is just stupidly incredibly lucky. My main, who is rank 50, has gotten 1 orb the entire time. I wont be counting the gold from selling any of these in my gold totals, because it's not reasonable to expect people to have that kinda luck. I want my numbers to reflect what you'd get low end or at a minimum.

I did not make it to Termidians today, but Groko and Bandits, on Terra, are now full completed. I ended day 2 after a little over 5 hours (11 total) at rank 26, with 126k Knowledge Points, and 24k in the bank. No changes to my gear or skills from yesterday.

My talents are now:

You best bet to get this addressed is to come over to the Discord. The GMs posted something in the Community-news channel about a recovery process.

@Rickman The Discord is the best place to get information or communicate with the Devs/GMs.

Right now we're waiting on them to restore all the cities and fix some privileges.

@Fi Yep. Added to the list. shakes head

@Fi I have no idea why you think I was talking about morality in any way. Literally none.

My response is saying that the 3 world design of the game means, by necessity, that natural inhabitants of Tartaros should find it difficult to do anything on Arboreus and the same thing in the opposite. Any player choosing to be one or the other is signing onto the consequences of those choices (and the consequences of becoming an Angel or Abomination).

"Angels should be added since Demons will have a hard time on Arboreus," (my words) is thinking incorrectly about the point of Angels and Abominations. By becoming one of those you should be irrevocably changing the nature of your character. An Angel is turning it's back on what it means to be evil and part of Tartaros. An Abominiation is turning it's back on what it means to be Good and part of Arboreus.

It will be very disappointing if the "combination races" are changed from this original design to just a different skin option for the player model.

Day 2 Plan:

TDLR: I will continue thinking about a house, but I think it's unlikely for me to spend time on it with how well things are going. I'm missing two Axe skills, but I don't know if I need them and both are on Aerhen. (Hack & Slash, Decimate). There are no other skills that I want, but a few (from the Day 1 Plan) that I might try to get while just getting knowledge. I'm confident I can clear all green and yellow POI on Terra so that will be my primary plan while also maxing monster knowledge in those areas. No planned changes to my gear or skills from Day 1. END TLDR

With 63k Knowledge (out of 80k to lose my newbie protection) this is where I would be very strongly considering what skills I need from Aerhen and getting them before I lose the newbie protection. This will be your last chance to freely camp anything on Aerhen and if your build has things you absolutely want, you should be considering dropping everything to go get them for their boost to your power. I don't have any of those for this build so I will continue on Terra for now.

I logged out on the east side of Terra so I think I'm going to give Ogre Watchers a try (Call to Tenacity 40%). The double shield Ogre (both varieties) are actually on the harder end of Ogres in my experience. I don't need Call to Tenacity, but I'm in the area so I want to poke some Ogre and see how it goes. (I may try Aura of Oppression against the Ogre Watchers, we'll see and I'll report. I will not rely on my Primal Form to clear them because I think most of you will not be Iridra.)

Even if I get Call to Tenacity, I wont do any more Ogre, because there is much more easily obtained KP out there, than what I can get from Ogre. Unless you need skills from them, moving on to harder content when there is still large amount of lower level KP, is a trap. Fun to do and cool to see, but you're slowing your KP progress down at this point.

The plan after my Ogre test is to clear the other green and yellow POI. (North Groko area, Bandits, and then Termidians.) I'm pretty confident I can handle these areas without any issue. I will have to watch my warm stacks against the Crazy Pyromancers because those hurt, but I think I will kill them in a single rotation. I do still have my Passion Flower Tincture and those should work on warm stacks if I get desperate.

When I'm at Groko and or Bandits, I will reassess the need for the mana regen nodes that I have on the talent tree. 4x T2 enchants is 20 total mana regen so I might be good with all or some of these points elsewhere. Quick Rest solves a lot of mana problems, but it's still extra time that you could save if you balance your regen a little better. Since I do not have a second enchant on my weapons, I could try out a mana leech imbue. I've never tried them before, but a cheaper imbue option should be: Boar Tusks, Mandrake, Ogre Horn, Ogre Horn. (You may need to buy Ogre horns at this point, but they should be cheap on Terra.)

I actually want to test the mana leech, but since I did not save my temporary imbue station from Day 1, I would have to drop 2k to get it added to a weapon or find someone else to do it for me. (I really was not expecting to do any more enchants for a good while and did not want to have to run out and delete my house plot if I found a spot I wanted.) I may allow myself to cheat this once at let my main account do the imbue for me in the interest of testing out the mana leech option.

If I end up dropping the mana regen from my talent tree, I am not sure what I will get instead (or work on as I continue to rank up).

Talent Options (anything not listed is not worth it imho):

• Stay INT, but get 10% mana cost reduction and 10% cooldown reduction. Neither of these are super good for me, but they do legitimately improve damage.
• CON: All options can be argued to be worthwhile.
  -HP is HP.
  -Fortitude protects against all the most common debuffs (poison, bleed, Elemental stacks, etc). Since we wont be able to rely on protection spells or debuff clears this could be handy.
  -More magic res will help once we start getting into the higher magic damage monsters.
• CON/STR:
  -The shield nodes are not useful since we're 2H Axe right now. They are a defensive option if you really need it and want to swap to 1h and shield.
  -Thick Skinned and Natural Shield are good for anyone if you need defenses. I don't think I need them at this point so I doubt I'll get them.
• STR: Mixed bag past what we have already.
  -HP regen sounds meh, but... Our heals are currently Bandages and Bloodlust. There is a world where 20 flat hp regen and 20% more hp regen might actually make a difference. You could also put a HP regen imbue on your armor. I've never actually tried a HP regen stacker, but like I said, our heals are bandages and Bloodlust. I might try it sometime. (A cheaper T2 Health regen would be: Amanita, Anthurium, Anthurium, Living Wood, Troll Liver.)
  -Most people would never suggest getting Carry Weight for a combat build, but I'm not most people. Since I'm max looting everything and trying to sell it, being able to carry even more stuff could help me make money by letting me stay out longer with few or no trips to town and no deleting items to get under the carry limit. I'm not going to use this unless I reach the point where I'm actually reaching my carry limit. I wont recommend this, but I did want to explain why you might consider it.
• DEX/STR: Movement speed is useless for us in PvE combat, but it would help us move around more quickly and thus farm faster.
• DEX:
  -Evasion is a defensive option as long as we're in Leather Armor and not Hide/Chain/Plate.
  -Armor Pen is a solid damage boost.
• DEX/PER Feint and The One are the same as Evasion. The accuracy from Feint is not bad for evasion builds that use accuracy.
• PER
  -Accuracy is good for us, but as long as we can use Hunter's Mark this is completely skippable.
  -Crit is crit. Very viable.

I do not need anymore defenses for the mid to low level content that I still need to do (even for some higher level). I will probably get Armor Pen and or Crit. Those will help me blow through the lower level content much more quickly. I can change to something more defensive later if I want.

A note on Bandits: Aerhen has two bandit camps so while you are doing them on Terra, you do not need to 100% all of them if you do not want. You could finish them when you get the Aerhen POI. I will 100% them on Terra for a couple of reasons. First, I know the spawns on Terra much better than Aerhen so I can more easily target the rarer monsters. Second, no one is going to kill me and take my stuff when I'm on Terra. I don't think the Aerhen bandit caps get many reds, but I'm not super confident in my build's current ability to kill evil mages or escape.

Another note on Bandits: Any chest event you see on Terra's beaches will have bandits and there are a lot of beaches and chest events. If you struggle with bandits (regardless of build) you can try these out. It's much easier to get them solo or run if things go south.

I mean, people that choose to be demons are signing up for what they get. I have no sympathy for em nor do I want to do anything to make it easier for them. The design of the three worlds and the Good, Neutral, and Evil nature of them (and their inhabitants) is an important aspect of the game. Demons should not have it easy on Arboreus just like good Wildfolk will not have it easy on Tartaros.

It's worth mentioning that you need about 1.5 "planets" worth of knowledge to hit rank 50. Everything past that is for show. Demons should be able to max out on Tartaros and Syndesia.