Returned player feeling like a fish out of water.

Merilwen

I played a bit early on when there were quite a lot fewer choices to make, and even then things felt overwhelming and complex compared to other IRE games. This isn't necessarily a complete obstacle for me, as I'm not against learning to do more complicated things. I do have a few questions though.

1. I know this is a pretty standard one. "Which is the best class to play?" But I'd like to put a different spin on it. Which classes (archetypes) are the easiest to pick up and decently good for PVE undertakings? Hunting, influencing, lower lesson/credit investment to be able to be decently effective with it. I'm not particularly interested in PVP on the whole, so if they lack in that area? Not worried about it. What races complement these archetypes for those things best in terms of racial abilities? I'm not looking to create a purely min-maxed character, but I want to know some of the better possibilities to think about.

2. Another standard with hopefully a bit of a different twist to make it easier. Which cities or communes are fairly active, preferably more good-leaning or at least dark for a good cause, and fun for RP that isn't pretentious against beginner/out of practice RPers? I'm a bit willing to compromise on theme of an organization if it means having a decent number of people to lean on for help.

3. Are there any good up-to-date resources for explaining the basics and/or beyond in learning the game? It seems like a lot of the information on the Wiki and the forums both is simply out-of-date, incomplete, or leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

I realize that there are other threads like this, but it seems like a lot of them are people focusing on different aspects of the game or are from quite some time back, including prior to what I believe were revamps.

Thank you in advance.

Eritheyl

1. Monk is wonderful for PVE if we're talking directly out of the box, given the utility/buffs that come with certain skillchoices (Psionics - Psychometabolism) along with attack speed and damage. Any class can access "peak performance" bashing with the availability of gnomeweapons, though these do require a particular skill and gold investment or helping hand to get early on. Not a necessity, just a nicety. Warriors can also likely be competitive for vanilla bashing, and are slightly more approachable IMO. Can't speak much to the specifics of classes v. archetypes as I've only recently played with Gaudiguch's, and haven't bashed without a gnomeweapon for a while.

2. Population is currently highest in Magnagora, Gaudiguch and Celest I believe, not necessarily in that order. Celest is definitely the one you want for good-leaning, Magnagora is edgy-dark, and Gaudiguch is largely ambivalent with very subtle, morally-questionable undertones. It's fairly likely you'll find pretentious RP lurking in any org, but it's definitely not something I've experienced on the regular. Helpful people exist all around, and even if someone isn't immediately awake in your org, the newbie channel won't let you down for Q&As.

3. That's a really wide net to throw out! The initial introduction and city/commune collegiums beyond will cover a lot of the basics, but there's always something new to learn, so it largely depends on what your interests end up being. The best advice I can offer is to first try the in-game HELP system, as that's going to be the most up to date thing there is. Of course it doesn't cover everything, so pester pester pester - most folks are more than willing to answer as many questions as they can, or at the very least refer you to someone who can help more. I like to think we have an awesome community in that regard. Also, Discord! There's a general server for the game at large that a lot of people frequent, and your org likely has its own server as well. I know Gaudiguch's at least is wonderfully active, can't speak for any others though.

Hope this helps!

Merilwen

Thank you for the advice.

I heard that the learning curve for monks is a bit steep, especially for someone not used to Lusternia's generally more complex nature. With that in mind, would another archetype be more newbie-friendly while still being good for both bashing and influencing?

Saran

1. For me, it's mostly about the utility that's available.

• Ecology (Druids/Bards) is kinda great, you get pathfinding from hunting which can help with geting around (arti is available), you get the ability to influence animals, there's charm defense buffs, and transmigration for some more buffs as well as a res.
• Hunting (Warriors) is the other hunting spec which has the bond which can sometimes be pretty great for tracking quest items down. (Can get something similar from wonderbrazier)
• Dreamweaving (Druid/Mage) can also be neat because it provides easy access to Nirvana where there's so many things to influence/kill.
• Wildarrane (Spiritsingers / Seren bards) can be set up with a buff song with some universal damage buffs and resistances along with some bonuses to curatives, being Elfen with it also gives a bonus to divinus damage which is useful. Probably better for others to talk about their orgs bards.

You'd likely find more just first things that come to mind.

2. To try to speak to Seren, it can be pretty busy at certain times and really quiet at other times tbh.
Seren's alignment to me is basically just "nature", sometimes that looks good, sometimes darker, really it's just... both exist in nature and are needed for life to really flourish. So if you wanted to be darker for the good of nature that's a thing as is focusing more on the lighter side, or striking a balance between.

Aeldra

Merilwen said:

Thank you for the advice.

I heard that the learning curve for monks is a bit steep, especially for someone not used to Lusternia's generally more complex nature. With that in mind, would another archetype be more newbie-friendly while still being good for both bashing and influencing?

Monks learning curve really just applies when you're getting to PvP / PK. for PVE they're really just require reading through the abilities once and picking those that work best for bashing and influencing for you. I'm not sure about acrobatics and would suggest going psymet for bashing at least,  for the extra healing, the resistance to bone breaks and the bloodloss reduction. There may be org-dependent differences  too, but I feel for bashing and influencing, monk is a fairly versatile class.

For Celest, I think we've got a fairly welcoming community there, even though it can be a bit quiet, depending on which time you're playing. Shouldn't be hard to find people to RP with, though. As Eritheyl pointed out, there's certainly several options you have in terms of activity and for all, it does wary per time of day. If you are uncertain, could always go ahead and create a newbie to get a feel for a respective org before you decide to "settle" there.

Eritheyl

I glossed over your mention of racial abilities, whoops.

On the whole these are pretty minor until you get to demigod and demigod+ with the artifact. The resistances are a drop in the bucket, but every bit does help. Same goes with the influencing buffs, though here some are more useful than others, as empowering and charity are the main influence types you'll be using for leveling up if you go that route.

Race isn't all that vital of a choice as in years past, there are no really "bad" decisions except in the case of roleplay (playing merian/elfen/kephera in Magnagora, or illithoid/viscanti in Serenwilde or Celest as examples).

Arix

and Kephera in Magnagora seems to be the hot new thing

Jatius

Monk with harmony and psychometabolism is the route I'd go for ease of pve (so Celest or Serenwilde). So many great buffs/defenses, I'm usually a bit jealous of Harmony. For pve, you really only need two monk attacks (forms). One that is just hand attack/hand attack/kick, and one that is raze/hand attack/kick. The advantage of monk as well is you have three hits per attack. If I remember correctly (I haven't done any actual killing pve stuff with monk attacks) each hit can be a critical hit. I like that since without damage shift (a fairly high investment skill) you can "waste" a lot of damage with single, large hits.

For race, I'd say it really comes down to the demigod powers, most prior to that are meh with exception of humans who get +20% xp (but humans are stinky). Orclach and loboshigaru are great from a survivability point of view. Taurian, dracnari, and viscanti are great from a mostly offense view (though drac and visc require a 1k credit artifact to unlock the ability) as they gain an extra attack against your target.

Hope this helps some. And if I'm spreading misinformation, someone please let me know.

Saran

Jatius said:

Monk with harmony and psychometabolism is the route I'd go for ease of pve (so Celest or Serenwilde). So many great buffs/defenses, I'm usually a bit jealous of Harmony. For pve, you really only need two monk attacks (forms). One that is just hand attack/hand attack/kick, and one that is raze/hand attack/kick. The advantage of monk as well is you have three hits per attack. If I remember correctly (I haven't done any actual killing pve stuff with monk attacks) each hit can be a critical hit. I like that since without damage shift (a fairly high investment skill) you can "waste" a lot of damage with single, large hits.

For race, I'd say it really comes down to the demigod powers, most prior to that are meh with exception of humans who get +20% xp (but humans are stinky). Orclach and loboshigaru are great from a survivability point of view. Taurian, dracnari, and viscanti are great from a mostly offense view (though drac and visc require a 1k credit artifact to unlock the ability) as they gain an extra attack against your target.

Hope this helps some. And if I'm spreading misinformation, someone please let me know.

There's also stances, once you start cycling through them as long as you keep up the pace you have:
A defensive buff for one round, then a better one for roughly three rounds.
Same with a damage buff.
One of your attacks during that it's additionally buffed.


Though also to note, those benefits are only available when you're using actual monk attacks. So if a purchased bashing attack (gnomeweapon / whip) is on the cards that's not really as much of a selling point and it may not be worth investing too much in kata and spending those lessons elsewhere (unless PvP is a potential game activity)