Since the EA launch, specifically with the game now having two different worlds with very different resources, I've thought more and more about trading and the economy. The conclusion that I've reached is that I would like to see an increased ability to trade raw materials over longer distances.

In the current system, due to the weight of raw materials being many times more than finished goods, it is incredibly inefficient to transport raw materials when compared to finished goods. I have been told that the design intent is for this to be true - that trading be done in finished products rather than raw materials. Whether or not that is the case, I'd like to make an argument in support of increasing the viability of raw material trade as a primary activity.

The reason I think raw material trade should be changed is simply because it adds another play style to the game (shipping) that is not currently very well defined/supported. Additionally, it adds depth to being a merchant and participating in the economy.

The suggestion I would make is to add the ability to "bundle" x amount of raw material (leather, hides, cloth, metal, wood, etc) into a single "heavy" item that can then be placed into a wagon and transported like any other heavy material. Upon arriving at your destination the items could be un-bundled and sold (or perhaps the heavy bundles could be sold on the market and un-bundled by the purchaser).

The primary example behind thinking about this suggestion came from playing on Arboreus. I have leather coming out my ears, but no interest in using it. Even hauling it from my house (where my tubs are) to the closest city isn't worth the effort because I can carry so little of it. And leather is one of the lighter raw materials. I can never imagine myself hauling it through a Stargate 150 pieces at a time.

The big disclaimer here is that allowing bundles in the above manner would potentially increase supply of items globally. Since the transport and sale of raw materials would be easier, people might be less likely to just let items rot on corpses and would be more willing to gather raw materials since their transport and sale would be easier.

The counter argument that I've heard against this suggestion is that distance, time, and fees are an important part of the game and that it shouldn't be easy to transport items. I don't disagree with this assessment at all and I agree those are all important considerations; however I do think things are out of balance when the finished set is worth more than the raw materials and also 5 to 10 times easier to transport for trade (meaning 5 to 10 times lighter than the raw goods).

The efficiency of transporting raw materials can be fine tuned (balanced) by changing the amount of materials in a bundle, adding a maximum weight to wagons, or adjusting the fee to transport while hauling a wagon (via harbor or stargate).

I don't want raw material transport to be easy, I just want it to be a viable activity relative to finished goods. Let people who want to buy low where the supply is high and sell high where the supply is low do it in a manner that is comparable to other forms of making money (i.e. hitting goblins with a stick and generating gold from thin air).

This is not a guide or how to. It's just some notes from leveling an alt and a melee build that I think new players might find helpful when they're planning a build and they want to read a wall of text.

I wanted to make a melee character and ended up choosing a Chadra with Dex/Int/Per maxed. I started as a Street Rat basically because everyone said it was the worst starter.

Using a Dagger with a cloth set and the basic street rat skills, the first three things I did were: get Verdant Regrowth from Sproutlings to protect my Dex/heal; get Battle Jump from Bullfrogs as a movement (Battle Jump because I planned on trying Battlemage set); get Chilling Touch from blue frogs (mostly because I found them first versus the fire frogs).

At this point I switched to unarmed with cloth. I tooled around the jungle with this build but really struggled killing anything without enough talent points to get Martial Mastery. Bought a Scimitar off the market because it was cheap and close by then picked up Bleeding Strike and Bloodlust from lizards and then Barbed Skin from Sproutlings. At this point I switched to Dex/Int/Con because I wanted bandages to work better than they were.

Scimitar, cloth set, Verdant Regrowth, Battle Jump, Strike Wounds, Rend Armor, Bleeding Strike, Barbed Skin, Bloodlust: Full cleared the southern Grokoton area picking up Spike Trap and dropping Battle Jump. Had almost no issued clearing this area. Talent points went down Dex, picking evasion, and then to Single Weapon Mastery. Also mana regen.

On the way to Bandits, I picked up Crippling Strike off Crabs and dropped Bleeding Strike - using Spike Trap for Bleed synergy with Bloodlust. I also made a bow to pull bandits. Full cleared the main bandit island without much trouble. Bandit Leaders were difficult, but I was able to kill em.

At this point in time I had made about 33k off farming and drops and there was a Battlemage set for 30k. Swapped to Battlemage and Rapier. (I did a bunch of testing with unarmed, scimitar and rapier. Rapier felt better and won out. Unarmed never felt good.)

The Battlemage stacks do not get increased or refreshed from mana over time costs (i.e. from Barbed Skin). After looking at 5 second CD skills I decided to get Cure Wounds because I already knew it and it could be used with medium armor. I built up and maintained Battlemage stacks with Verdant Regrowth and Cure Wounds Spam.

Rapier with Battlemage and: Cure Wounds, Verdant Regrowth, Spike Trap, Crippling Stirke, Strike Wounds, and Battle Jump. (Barbed Skin dropped sue to mana issues.) Getting the hang of Cure Wound spam took a little, but with 300 stacks of the Battlemage buff, I absolutely decimated all of the rest of the bandit camps. Four bandits at once could get rough, but never died and blew through all the rest of the POI. Leaders were still difficult because they stun and bad timing would end up reseting my Battlemage stacks.

Feeling confident, I skipped all other content and went strait to ogres. Ogre Brute hit me too hard with their sword attacks, but I was able to kill all the rest just fine. Dodging the ranged attacks from Witches an Druids made those super easy. I learned Empower from Druids and maintained Battlemage stacks with Empower, Verdant Regrowth, and Cure Wound (I picked up mana regen enchants to facilitate the spam). Dropped Battle Jump for Empower.

From here I decided to get Weaken from Obsidian Crabs in the volcano so that I could try Ogre again as well as the big dragons. I learned Protection from Fire for the volcano monsters. Both Dragonlings went down fairly easily though mountain was not super easy. Earth Elementals were fairly easy. Greater Earth Elemental was my first k/o since picking up Battlemage - too many stuns that would break my Battlemage stacks. Everything else in the volcano was easy to trivial except for the big dragons.

TLDR on big dragons: Weaken only has a 50% uptime for me and Ember Dragon hits like a truck. If I went back and practiced more I think I could maybe kill it by kiting between weakens, but oof, hits hard. Did not try a Mountain Dragon knowing that they do not hit quite as hard, but guessing it would still be too much (plus they also stun).

At this point, alt is probably benched. I will probably dust them off once Stone Skin can be learned and then I'll give the hard content another shot (and probably update here). Edit: I wont do this since Stone Skin is light armor only >.<

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: Iridra, Gladiator with 17 STR/CON 18 PER. (You might want to read the reasons for the race in non TLDR.) Axe for Bloodlust synergy. 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 achieving something.

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 think a lot of advice is to start as a mage and then move out from there (I did that on my first character). I want to show something other than what the common advice is so I wont go for a mage background. There are a lot of people that want to play a tanky melee character and when asked I usually point them towards Gladiator as a solid background so I will start as a Gladiator.

For weapons: Original Sin has some videos showcasing a 2h Sword build from just before EA release. Some stuff got rebalanced, but if you wanted to be 2H sword, most everything is still good. Someone recently asked me about an axe build and I had no good answer so I'll be starting out with an axe build.

For Stats: I'm going to max STR and CON for health, damage with axes, bandage healing, and because CON will help with some future abilities. For the 3rd stat, most would reccomend one of two options.

• DEX is attack speed and evasion, but with the recent changes to encumbrance (now lowering your evasion on top of all other stuff) I'm not as keen on DEX for a STR based melee build. I would not choose DEX.
• PER is crit damage and accuracy (which helps a lot since you rely on auto attacks). This is more damage. No downsides.
  I'm not most people so here is a 3rd option:
• WIS is only an option because of the Leadership ability school. It has several buffs and debuffs that I think make WIS a possible contender because their uptime depend on WIS. (This is mostly an option that will make you tankier, but only after you have managed to track down all the skills. This is something that may become an option later. Do not take it starting out.

I would recommend people choose PER. I picked PER.

For Race: With STR/CON/PER I lean towards either Human or Iridra (Wildfolk Human). Nheedra (Bear Wildfolk), when they are added, could also be a good choice. Until then:

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.

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 PER 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.

Objectively, I think Humans are the better choice for in this specific build, because, of Iridra maxing out at 17 STR and CON which are the primary two stats on a melee tank build. I would recommend Humans to new players. However, I'd picking Iridra. The reason for this is because I've never played one and never really given them a chance. Their Primal Form sounds good, but with the recharge limits, we'll see if it actually is. I will make an effort to point out times when I used it and if it helped.

That's the basic 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.

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 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.

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:

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.

Edit 31 AUG: Around the 2nd week of August, several new summons were added and the original set of summons (which are talked about in this Not a Guide) got minor to mid range buffs to their resistances. To make a long explanation short, you can expect the minions talked about here to be a little more tanky than they were before.

This is current as of Mid July 2024 (1.0 - Elysium)

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.

I 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: Summoner focused character with supplemental magic. Planning for Erwydra with INT/WIS/DEX. Starting as a Druid Background. END TLDR

Introduction: 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. These will follow the format of, "Day X plans," and, "Day X Results."

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.

This is my first Not a Guide since the Endgame Combat patch. If you see a Not a Guide with (Pre ECG) know that they are outdated and probably not worth your time.

For weapons: Because I plan to focus on summons and magic for this character, I will probably be going with staves. Mending would benefit healing my summons while one of the elemental staves would help with any damage I wanted to "help" my summons with. There are melee options that would allow spell casting and give me better defenses, but I'm feeling like staves to start and then we'll see how it goes.

For stats: WIS governs all summon scaling (via Spiritual Power) as well as Restoration. This is the one mandatory stat that I think any summoner should take.

• STR is Physical Power and synergizes with Leadership skills (to buff summons) as well as let me get up close and personal to fight with them or use bows and bow skills well.. Going this route could work well, but I want to focus on spells. (It's handy for Carry Capacity if you're a loot hoarder.)
• CON More HP - never a bad thing, but I have summons so this seems much less useful than normal.
• DEX Since I'm relying on summons, this seems to only give me Cooldown Reduction. That isn't bad, as it will help with ability cooldowns (i.e. healing your summons). This would also help with evasion if I decided to stack it for, "oh shit," moments.
• INT is Magical Power and buffs all offensive and buffing magic. This opens up all spells, buffs, and debuffs. Since I'm going magic for this build, this is mandatory.
• PER If I was going to rely more heavily on spellcasting then it could be good for me. Crit and Crit damage is obvious. Accuracy would help with applying debuff stacks. But since my choice for magic is secondary, I don't know that I will take it.

WIS/INT for sure because I'm choosing to supplement my summons with magic.. After that... I'm going to go DEX, at least at the start. Partly because nothing else really stands out to me and then just for that extra CDR.

For race: In prior Not a Guide(s) this section was always pretty long, but there have been a lot of recent changes in Fractured that have made the race choice eh... Easier and more complicated at the same time. I know, some people will feel very strongly about race choice, but for the purpose of this Not a Guide, I'm not going to deeply dive into races.

I will say this, since I want to focus on summons and magic, Blood Demon, Human, Iridra, and Erwydra are all more caster focused races. Human or Iridra are both "balanced" and would let you respec into anything else that you might decide to play without any real downsides of the race. They're both very good and you could argue that either is flat out the "best" race.

I'm probably going to choose Erwydra because that race lends itself more into casting and that style is something that I tend to prefer. If, later, I decide to stop being a summoner, it would let me slide into being a very good caster.

That's about it for the introduction. I tend to post the results and the plans for the next day, each day.

@Hraezlyr You need to buy the game and there is no monthly fee to play. There will be an optional "VIP" that you'll be able to pay cash for or buy with in game currency.

I have two questions that I think need answered before you even address the topic of whether or not recipes should be changed.

1. Why do recipes exist at all?

2. In a completely player driven economy, why should the developers make changes to ensure that any specific item does not lose it's value?

@luminos77 Try placing down a charcoal blueprint in/around the root and that should make it disappear. Once it's gone, you can delete the blueprint and build normally.

Currently, your damage and DPS are only shown in the tooltip of the weapon you're using. If you are unarmed, there's no way to see what your "weapon" damage and or DPS are.

Please add this feature somewhere to the character sheet.

I've been working with Spoletta on possible bugs related to using Touches and Strikes at the same time while in Primal Form. I think they're handling the bug report (if not I'll post it separately).

Today I found out some new info that makes me think that when the "Primal Form claws count as any 1h weapon" part was added to the game, no one considered whether or not it was ok for Touches and Strikes to be used at the same time while in Primal Form. (Because it was actually impossible for them to be used together before.)

So yea, maybe this isn't a buff request, but rather, "please decide whether or not Primal Forms should be allowed to use a Touch ability as the same time as a Strike ability." (My opinion is still that it should be allowed. It's a good buff for unarmed and Primal Forms.)

TLDR: Even with max possible investment in Health Regeneration (which is not realistic, see below), you get ~25 health Regen from 4x Enduring II. In anything realistic, you get 3-5 health regen from 4x Enduring II. Please improve Enduring II. END TLDR

Available Health Regen:
Base: 5
Iridra: 5
STR: (25) 0.5/STR
Enduring I: (4) 2 per point
T3 Health Regen Imbue: (4) 4.5
Arboreal Dragon Leather (set): 10
Potion of Vitality: 3
Verdant Regrowth: 60 (I don't know if Endrance II even effects this)
Iridra Primal Bonus: 200 (I don't know if Endrance II even effects this)

Enduring II: (4) 2% per point

• If you combined all of those at once (which you can't), you would have ~320 Health Regen and 4x Enduring II would give you ~25 health regen.
• If you dropped Iridra Primal Bonus you would have ~120 health regen and 4x Enduring II would give you 9.6 health regen.
• If you then dropped Verdant Regrowth you would have ~60 health regen and 4x Enduring II would give you 4.8 health regen.
• If you were a basic Human with 20 STR, 4x T3 imbues, 4x Enduring, and a Poition of Vitality you would have ~39 Health Regen and 4x Enduring II would give you ~3 health regen.

Realistically, a single point in Enduring II gives you 0.5 to 1 health regen. That is 50% to 75% worse than what you get from Enduring I.

I don't know if the fix would be to up the % or just make them a flat bonus, but currently they're pretty terrible.

Even for a build that is maxing out STR, this talent is very bad. (I mention this specifically because the usual pattern of the 2nd tier of talents is meant to be more effective if you'd actually invested into the base stat.)

Today, 31 AUG, I finally got around (remembered) to check to see if the original set of summons got any changes when the new ones were added. They did. Almost all of the original set got 50 to 150 buffs to various resistances (a few did get minor nerfs to resistances). These were mostly in the various magic resistances making them all a bit tankier than they were when this Not a Guide was first written.

The most notable buffs were probably given to the various Primelings which should tank a lot better than before - especially magical damage. (These also got a big HP buff.)

I'm not going to go back through and update this Not a Guide with these new stats because these kinds of rebalancing changes can happen often and it's a lot of work to retest and the update all of the posts. The big thing to know is that most of the summons I talked about will be tankier.

@Irven said in Free Play Extended & Summer Roadmap:

Despite the previous update bringing new minions, the game still doesn't support the use of minions, such as "sets".
It's very common to see mages (and archers) using elementals as a "tank" while casting powerful spells causing absurd damage, or tanks using ranged minions to complement the damage. However, there is STILL nothing that supports playing only with minions (like in the Lineage series, or FFXIV in the early days, and even some ARPGs like Titan Quest, Diablo, Last Epoch, Poe, etc.).

I'm not commenting on the suggestion to buff/tweak minions, just on the description of how they work.

If people are wanting a "minion army" style of gameplay where you can run around basically ignoring your minions and letting them passively kill things, you wont find that in Fractured Online. Combat in FO does not work like many of the example games listed. It is a slower and more intentional style of gameplay versus running around at full speed, screen lit with explosions, and just snapping up loot. It is not an ARPG and does not pretend to be.

The max count of summons you could have should be 4, but a more realistically, because of skill limits and such, you're probably going to be using 1-3 tops.

Anyone wearing light or medium armors (meaning not heavy armors) can use summons. This means that a very good use of them could be to tank for you while you kill something. FO's skill system is setup so that you can learn every skill in the game and mix and match to your hearts content as long as you meet the other requirements of the skills.

You can in fact reach max rank and kill every non legendary monster in the game with only minions and healing spells. I have personally done it. However, just because you can do it, doesn't mean that it's necessarily the best way to play summons. In FO, you have 8 skill slots and there is no reason you shouldn't throw some damaging skills in there, in addition to your summons and heals, to help kill stuff faster.

Minions are not perfect (not being able to keep up with you is really annoying), but they are totally viable as a gameplay style - at least in PvE.Just don't expect minions to do everything for you while you stand there 90% afk.

Without logging in to check, there should be materials that will give that stat if you make armors out of them. (Or there used to be.)

While in Primal Form, you are unarmed, but the Primal Form allows your claws to count as any one-handed melee weapon. This means you cannot get any stats from your equipped weapon or shield, but you can use abilities from any weapon school (as long as you meet the other requirements).

If you wanted, you can use the elemental Touch abilities for your auto attacks and, say, axe abilities while in your Primal Form. The problem is the various elemental touch abilities cannot be used at the same time as the various "Ready Strike" abilities.

For example, if you used Burning Touch it would cancel any of the following abilities:

Counter Strike
Bleeding Strike
Concussive Strike
Crippling Strike
Debilitating Strike
Disrupting Strike
Double Shot
Heavy Blow
Lethal Strike
(possibly others)

With two additional Primal Forms coming "soon," it would be cool if the various elemental Touch abilities were changed so that you could use them at the same time as you used the Ready Strike abilities. That would help unlock some new build choices and give a buff to Primal Forms which, basically, no one ever use.

(This would only effect Primal Forms because of how their "claws" work. It wouldn't buff any weapon schools.)