Leveling and Class Build Guide!

[Travis96]

Hello, everybody! You may remember this thread from General Discussion. However, we are reposting it here with something extra. With a bit of hard work, mainly on Miecka's end, we have created a leveling guide. Both for the Solo and Party leveling players. I do hope anyone and everyone can find these sheets helpful on Saturday when Open Beta launches.

Leveling Guide
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Class Build Guide
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[OwTheEdge]

Not to sound like a weird fangirl, but I was just hoping to find a sequel to the class build guide! I kept going back and forth with Frost's info and Lanniang's archives (which served me well), but looking at the Leveling Guide, there's a few recommendations that I'd want to help with:

On the Party - Neptune area, we used to stop at level 33/35, so one could take it from level 27 - 35 in the three typical areas inside Neptune. With the inclusion of Shannigan's repeat quests, a party could essentially take on the glob repeat-quest and mob the entire first ice sector or split that long ice sector into two parties (think of it like how the VIP Phoenix Tower area is split into two parties, both near the bird cages on Floor 3). After reaching 31 in that specific area, it starts to get a little slower on Globs, unless you found a spot at the old VIP area with the Zombies.

On the Party - Grizzly Garrison area, also because of the repeat quests from Bucky the Thief, the entire Garrison has changed quite a bit. The specific area where the Bandit Head Chef is, now that there are missions to turn in (the first two on the list), Party people quickly go in and out of that specific area -- grind for 2 minutes, turn in for 20 seconds, go back and grind for 2 minutes. There are two other locations, the Weird Bandit room and the Starlight Anklet room (can't confirm but if there are enough Bandits, it's possible) are now two additional areas to party grind.

Any of those three areas now have a puller randomly pulling from the hallway itself (that connects the three rooms); as such, one could essentially pull starting from the hallway to the Weird Bandit room, and bring it back around to the fireplace room/Bandit Head Chef. If there are two parties (one in the Fireplace, one in the Weird Bandit), most of the time they respect each other's rooms as they turn in the quest.

Back in the old AeriaDomo days (first half of the entire run), we DID used to go down to the floor areas, which actually DID require Mirror Quest completions (to that extent) and into the hallways. And we used to grind for 1.5 hours at a time, instead of the 5 minutes of rinsing and repeating.

On the Party - Foggy Forest area, I remember there being three specific areas to party, which does not seem to have changed with the inclusion of the repeat-quest area. I do remember having to pass through two sets of portals, and THEN an immediate area to the left, followed by a "Hallway" like area followed by another portal. This third portal led to a final area (possibly it's VIP area at the time) which pullers got to circle from two smaller clumps of forestry. Without an accurate map, I can understand if this does not help -- I'd like to follow up with anyone reconfirming this, or I'll reconfirm myself once I get there again.

On the Party - Dragon's Den area, There were four (or five) places to level - it's overall much like you originally documented, FNS, but if you really wanted to (and if you were daring) you could accelerate at the old unnamed castle where Bandits are (Imagine the Garrison and this clip). There was a boss that spawned there as well after a certain number of Seargants, the Bandit Master. I hinted at this at a recent Mercenary guide, but you were pretty much on the steps taking on stronger Bandits and that this required more fighters than casters, or a really attentive Mercenary.

Since most people were caster-centric, you simply flew to the end of the map (before Sneaky Peak actually opened) and took one of three (or four) possible spots for Flying Noisy Snakes after the old unnamed Bandit castle. This still possibly exists, since there's no confirmation of a repeat-quest mission (there was an NPC available). Also, this knowledge changed the way a Mercenary was positioned at a party -- we all knew that the Merc was the only person who could hold down the fort, but with FNS you had to reskill to change your Forms, but that you could still Mock Monsters to take aggro. What armor and what stat points I do not remember, but hopefully someone here does.



Edit: For the Solo/Duo - Town-God Temple section, one COULD possibly take an entire team down there to what used to be a VIP area as well. This isn't indicated all the way on the map, but if you reached down to the lower level (after the 6 door hallway) and after the small cave-like path, there were three areas to choose from -- it started from a large old cave area which was as huge as Phoenix Tower's VIP area, and then a small portal into a safe area, but if you turn the corner you'll reach another wave of monsters. This was essentially another spot to level in as it used to be our VIP area. If you went further down that same "section" (possibly codenamed the hallway), you would reach another portal at the very end, but it lead to an empty room (this i'm not too sure on, but it should be accurate enough).

We used to go down there from levels 45-60. This was a glorious time as Dragon's Den and everything after that was never included. Oh the fights and associations and party arrangements we had -- some of us even using as many as 6 sets of Sheffield Steel armor in a single grind session! I can imagine people in Closed Beta actually approached this to reach the lvl 50 cap.

For the Solo/Duo - Blakatoa Peak area, you COULD take a party onto the Plain Valley area, but this was uncommon of due to having to just wait it out for a spot in Foggy Forest. One could pull the entire valley, but I can't confirm if the Mercenary needed to reskill and change his forms. If you can, wait for further stories from other people - I do remember doing a quest for a certain number of Scorpions in the Plain Valley.



If you can, please wait for further "likes" or confirmations on this info. I was generally surprised that the repeat-quests actually save money in the long run (armor/weapons and repairing), but that they changed the some of the "grinding mentality".

[CF_kietaro]

thankies for this its awesome

[Divini]

From what I read about hunter endgame builds, you don't particularly need Demonslayer Arrow nor Bowstring Shockwave. Assassin Arrow and max Full Draw is kinda optional too. Better to divert points into ankle strike 5 + Weak Spotter + Sharpened Arrow.

This is from personal experience in CBT, for Thief, throw knife and light hammer throw blows. Like unless you have some kind of high mp skillspam build the damage is so subpar for the points invested. Much rather put the points there into the various sneak attack skills for utility. They all give great utility that I'd take any day over a weak ranged attack.

[DOMOAKFrost]

From what I read about hunter endgame builds, you don't particularly need Demonslayer Arrow nor Bowstring Shockwave. Assassin Arrow and max Full Draw is kinda optional too. Better to divert points into ankle strike 5 + Weak Spotter + Sharpened Arrow.

This is from personal experience in CBT, for Thief, throw knife and light hammer throw blows. Like unless you have some kind of high mp skillspam build the damage is so subpar for the points invested. Much rather put the points there into the various sneak attack skills for utility. They all give great utility that I'd take any day over a weak ranged attack.

giving up bowstring? that's blasphemy and madness.

neither ankle strike nor weak spotter have any synergy with sharpened arrows.

[Asakurai]

lol giving up bowstring for weak assasin arrow @_@

anyway Hunter best skill should be arrow alchemy

weak spotter only for Attack speed build, and ankle strike is ****ty (because of the range).

if You want to choose Hunter damage Skill, just choose Arrow Alchemy, Bowstring Shockwave, Additive Arrow, and Two Birds with one Stone (you can forget anything else)

[TheCyberGhost42]

if You want to choose Hunter damage Skill, just choose Arrow Alchemy, Bowstring Shockwave, Additive Arrow, and Two Birds with one Stone (you can forget anything else)

Strongbow has a faster growth rate than Additive, and is worth it for high levels.

[Asakurai]

Strongbow has a faster growth rate than Additive, and is worth it for high levels.

Yes it is, but it's MP consuming (twice of two birds / additive arrow) and troublesome 40 sec cooldown (28 sec with 102 Agi). Not mentioning you need to waste 8 skill point to open it (need full draw Lv. 5, unless you want to max full draw).

The downside of Additive arrow is Arrow Consume, for Two birds is need quite high M.Acc to be effective (and also a bit of luck ).

[Travis96]

With the Open Beta release date set. I have added some more information on the leveling guide sheet with the help of Zaf and OwTheEdge!

[TheCyberGhost42]

Yes it is, but it's MP consuming (twice of two birds / additive arrow) and troublesome 40 sec cooldown (28 sec with 102 Agi). Not mentioning you need to waste 8 skill point to open it (need full draw Lv. 5, unless you want to max full draw).

The downside of Additive arrow is Arrow Consume, for Two birds is need quite high M.Acc to be effective (and also a bit of luck ).

Additive has a 39 second cooldown at level 15 (Hunter level 68). When the cap goes higher than 70 Additive will have a higher cooldown when maxed.

You make 8 skill points to "open it" sound like a downside, it'll take the same number of skillpoints as any first page skill to cap since the first 2 points you spend on it are for a level 27, canceling it out. You could claim it's less efficient since you don't skip those points in a skill though however with this in mind it takes 6 skills (assuming 2 points per skill level, one skill level every 4 job levels [4 * 3 = 6 * 2]) to break even without springs, at minimum Hunter will still have an excess focusing on these 5 skills.

Being said, the only real argument against Strongbow is the MP consumption per use, which is a case by case scenario.


On another tangent, was the information I posted about Dancer ignored, or lost to Narnia?