some thoughts on low level character development

[Zhern]

Hi, here is a new player sharing some thoughts with fellow new players on where to spend the action points before lvl.20.  Pardon me for my poor English.

Just now a squad-mate talked about he was fighting a dungeon, and he hadn't reached the dungeon's rec level yet.  It reminded me of myself doing exactly that all the time with my first character, who is ~2 months old by now.  Now to think back, when I challenged higher lvl monsters or players, I usually had to put in my "strongest" charms into the gear, with the battle skills they would provide being mostly mastered already.  So it's a waste of action points if not for Heroism and Courage skills (or for better charms at a certain lvl for pvp use).

But it's kind of okay with that character, 'cause I want to collect every possible unique charm, so I have to clear every dungeon many times for that, and do a lot of pvp so I get all pvp charms too, and thus it's going to be a long, long way anyway.

But actually if not for collection, it's not that efficient (in action point's view) to do so.  A great majority of low level charms won't have their use later (though some do); farming dungeons and pvp are not as good as fighting in arena for gaining battle skill points.  And as long as one level up by mastering most of the skills at each level stage, there wouldn't be much difference if one gained the battle points in dungeons, arena or pvp.  ‘Cause the only key element here is skills. (I mean, before lvl.20; I believe charms will be more and more important as one levels up further).

So I created another character, using my action points "efficiently" -- most of them in the arena, and I don't go to a dungeon until I am relatively strong and could afford to arrange certain charms (instead of the "strongest ones") into the gears so that I get the skill points I need.  I sign up for pet racing and fighting whenever I can, and do some gathering when I don't have good charms for farming skills in arena at the moment.

I can see that my second character will out-level my first one in the near future; but still, with the first one I aim at collection, so that's that.  After all what matters most is the game experience; like the old saying "follow your heart".  Yet I still want to share the thoughts on "efficiency" above, for I was told once that "the most amazing of Estiah begins when you reach lvl.40" (I don't know lol, I find it kind of amazing even now), so I kind of want to share it with the fellow new players who prefer not to spend too much time at lower lvl...  Anyway, just FYI! )

[Zenetar]

Unfortunately, your post doesn't tell the new player what to do exactly.

The idea of skipping dungeon till you have good charms is just bad.
The low level dungeons can be beaten even if you are 2 levels below dungeon level.
Sometimes you can get more skill points in a dungeon then PvP.
Also some dungeon drops are useful in many ways
1)generally strong charm
2)helps you mastering a tricky skill
3)Is useful even late (Lightning reflexes is the best example)

Skipping low level PvP is also so-so.
PvP crafts (Soul Dust crafts for example) are the best charms for their level. Using vendor/dungeon charms everywhere means your deck is decent at best.

If you are a new player, the best advice is to join a training guild (CD, HIT, WAND, OOFM, etc.) so the rest will come from the guildmates.

[Zhern]

Thanks for the response, Zenetar!! 

I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear; but I did not mean "skipping" dungeons.  My point is (for efficiency):
I don't go to a dungeon until I am relatively strong and could afford to arrange certain charms (instead of the "strongest ones") into the gears so that I get the skill points I need.

Dungeons are a lot of fun; just for game experience I would clear each at least once.  Even if with my "efficient" character, I do not skip them.  I just do not farm them (with a few exceptions, like Goblin Tower for Cold Bronze Chest, Inachis Battle Tournament for Lightening Reflexes and Thunderock Canyon for Quick Blade and Heroism. I'm at lvl.10 and they're the three dungeons I have farmed by now).

And for pvp, I would say it's more a personal preference.  With my second character I aim at efficiency, so I would only do it for Courage, Recklessness, etc.  I'm doing okay without the pvp charms; I don't feel dungeons are difficult or anything.   But I actually enjoy pvp, so with my first character I do it all the time, changing up my pvp gear every now and then, finding it a whole lot of fun.  I even made friends through pvp.  So.  I hope I have made myself more clear this time, hahah.

[Sparky]

Thanks for the response, Zenetar!! 

I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear; but I did not mean "skipping" dungeons.  My point is (for efficiency):
I don't go to a dungeon until I am relatively strong and could afford to arrange certain charms (instead of the "strongest ones") into the gears so that I get the skill points I need.

Re-efficiency: while my first (clueless) char leveled up fast and ran dungeons more or less in the pattern you described, the other ones I made took all their time carefully farming dungeons very early, using them and their differences to level up every skill and never using jobs except to move from a city to another, thus not gaining much stat points from job. While very slow in the beginning (though it lets you farm all charms easily), this method is a lot faster eventually (you catch up with the "fast-leveling" char) as you have a lot more growth available when you really need it*, you've already farmed skills (it gets more annoying to do at higher levels) and you can easily use jobs to fix your stats to be where you want them to be.

From an AP-efficiency point of view, this is the best you can do as you farm dungeons/events and farm all skills at the same time, never needing to run the arena even, if you do things well (or just for survival/cheat death). Taking it slow also lets you update your gear as you gain stats, while going too fast through levels often finds you lagging behind charms-wise (thus the feeling of having to play your "strongest" charms to survive and not being allowed much variety in PvE/PvP). Last it allows you to build up high HP/Spirit through farming their related skills, which gives a huge boost in early levels (by roughly level 17 IIRC you can see a difference of +100HP or so between someone who's leveled up all these skills, not even counting mentoring - and someone who's just been using jobs to gain levels fast).

Now my philosophy is that you have to play however you want, because whatever path you choose, you can always make up for any mistake later on (or almost), so if you get bored taking the slow path, by all means speed it up! There's no right way to do things after all, just play in the way that suits you best.

* My first char, like most of the "speed-leveling" chars, ended up in his mid 40s with already 900/900 growth and the only way to gain stats at this point is to farm skills and drink an elixir (+1 stat) once a day, every day. Had he kept more growth, things would have gone much, much faster for him.
Keep in mind that it's possible to get to lvl 34 or so with just 1/900 growth (never gaining stats from jobs). Using jobs early can be alright to fix up some stats but overall you shouldn't overdo it, thinking it'll get you further faster.

[Zhern]

Thank you so much, Sparky   yeah! dungeons could be AP-efficient too; I guess I just have some obsession from my analytics background, so I use 12 AP on an arena mob and get >15 skill points from it and get satisfied with efficiency or something lol; I'm kind of using my second character as an experiment on efficiency, not really fun.  But I'm hoping that I'll get into the high-level world of Estiah more quickly through this path; and then I can have fun hahah.  'Cause with my first char, collecting is so slow, like, I had done the Thunderock Canyon first two fights more than 20 times, or maybe 30, and still didn't get a single Fiery Punch; I then decided to move on and look for it in auction maybe; but there seems no luck there, so one day I'll have to go back for Fiery Punch and waste a lot of time on it again for no skill points.  Actually, that was when I began thinking about creating a second "efficient" character.

Now my philosophy is that you have to play however you want, because whatever path you choose, you can always make up for any mistake later on (or almost), so if you get bored taking the slow path, by all means speed it up! There's no right way to do things after all, just play in the way that suits you best.

This!! <3  And the advice on "shouldn't overdo jobs".  They're indeed the best "beginner tips" hahah.  Thanks again~~ ^_^

[Ayleth]

The slow leveling character have its advantages and disadvantages. Training skills in the arena is nice, I made a deck to get twinblades, frost, balance and tactician at the same time... But nothing really beats dungeon hunting. Guaranteed you have to use overpowered charms between level 5-7 but once you reach 7 its pretty much smooth since you have mastered most of the high damage skills. now you can just make a gear for the skills you need to master next, add some filler/powerful already mastered charms and voila, you are set. And you get dungeon drops along with skill increases too!

Regarding the extreme gathering skills, they are the most AP inefficient things to do at low levels or so I believe. Random outnumbered encounters can be really frustrating as well as unable to do day to day things if you focus on gathering alone.