https://imgur.com/3EyFrCw
https://imgur.com/a3Utfcw
I just want too start off by saying I agree with what most of the users have posted here in this thread, the upgrade costs in Blade & Soul are getting worse with every patch, items like: "Sterling Scales" now lock you out of heart upgrades, to RNG upgrades that can fail like on Skystealer accessories.
last year I was forced to change my mindset with Blade & Soul, & I figured out ways to not get trapped by RNG gold sinks:
- Only upgrade your Weapon/Accessories to Stage 6 to get the bonus effect , going past stage 6 is not worth it, because of the RNG upgrades that can fail with diminishing returns. Also by the time you get your gear to +9, it will be out of date & replaced with future gear.
- Don't upgrade your gems, you will get free gems from future Soulboost events for free.
- Don't waste gold trying to re-roll your compound system since it's a gold sink, most of the time you will end up getting pvp stats instead of pve stats
-Don't buy items from F10 hongmoonstore unless you really need them , most of the items are highly overpriced & are not worth it. You can check the price of hongmoon coins to F9 gold being sold & see how overpriced alot of the items are in the F10 Hongmoonstore.
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-DO save all of your materials over 6+ months & only then decide if you want to upgrade, sometimes NC will have cost reductions on older gear, or you will end up getting free gear from the Soulboost events.
-DO fuse Crit or Boss AP into your soulsheilds, this will give you a large DPS increase & is a very affordable upgrade
DO, upgrade your unity stones, it's one of the best price/performance DPS upgrades you can get, since the game gives you free radiance unity stones everyday from login rewards.
-DO, keep an eye on the price of materials in F5 marketplace, you can sometimes find good deals if you are searching throughout the day.
-DO, run all F8 dungeons & weeklies, this is the best source of gold income in the game.
Trust me I understand how P2W Blade & Soul has become, & I have come too the conclusion that I just needed too change my mindset, Stage 6 gear is now the true max endgame gear & I'm okay with that. The best advice I can give to players is: just have fun playing the game & try not to stress over the overwhelming upgrade paths in the game. Play the game at your own pace there is no rush, not everyone needs the max highest gear in the game, I posted my gear above & I have already farmed over 1000x chaos supply chain dungeons runs.
I understand how alot of these Korean P2W MMO's turn out, with games like Tera having their servers officially shut down, like I said above don't stress, don't get mad , just play the game at your own pace & try too have fun!