Paci's Blade and Soul Guide for "Dummies"

[Paci]

I have been seeing a lot of questions out there, so I decided to make somewhat of a guide/FAQ to help out the newer players. This is not meant to be a “holy grail” guide that will hold your hand step-by-step through the entire game, but just to answer a lot of the questions you guys have so that you can use the information I give you to get by. Please do not take the "dummies" portion to heart. It's a play off an existing how-to/help book series.

 

What class should I play? What is the easiest class to learn? What is the best/OP class in this game?

Every class in this game is good and viable, it all depends on you to make it shine. Of course, each class has differing levels of “difficulty” when it comes to learning them but in the end it is up to you to unlock your class’ full potential. Please do not pick a class based on what is “OP,” because if you suck at the game the class will not carry you. The game does a fairly good job at balancing the classes, so remember that what is incredibly “OP” right now will probably not be “OP” later. Do not pick a class because it is “easy,” because in the end you might have picked a class that you do not like, and now you are probably stuck with it or have to go through with leveling another character. Pick a class that suits your playstyle and learn the ins and outs of that class. If you like multiple classes, then play them all because right now is the best time to do that. There is not too much content to stop you from having multiple characters right now, and later on having multiple characters actually benefits you (more characters to do dailies on and more characters for crafting professions to make you money).

 

Does gear matter in PvP? What is the point of gear if I cannot use it in arena?

Gear only matters in open world PvP, not in the 1v1 and 3v3 arenas (later on we may get the 6v6 arena, where gear does matter in that battleground). With that, a lot of you ask “what is the point of getting gear, then?” This question actually bugs me a lot so excuse me if my answer is a bit harsh, but I am about to break down the harsh reality of this game:

 

News flash, there is more to this game than PvP. I understand this game has an awesome arena system and a fairly big eSports scene, but there is more to Blade and Soul than arena. And another news flash, this game actually requires you to play it fully to be successful. Right now we do not have Hongmoon levels and skills but later we will get them and they are very important.

 

What are Hongmoon levels? Hongmoon levels are levels beyond your maximum level cap which gives you extra skill points.

What are Hongmoon skills? These are special skills that are unlocked via achievements or gained through learning them through “recipes.” Both of these things require you to step out of the arena to get. Some Hongmoon skill “recipes” are dropped from dungeons and the best way to get experience to level up your Hongmoon level is through doing your dailies and running dungeons.

 

So, with that, you need to keep your gear up to date in order to keep up with the content that comes out. So, sorry to all of you that just want to sit in arena all day and disregard any sort of PvE for whatever reason you have (most of your reasons give me a headache), but if you want to keep up in arenas you are going to need these Hongmoon levels and Hongmoon skills because they give you an advantage and fighting versus people with these skills or levels will be difficult if you cannot compete. So just take an hour or two out of your day to do your dailies and run endgame content to keep up with gear. The pros had to do it, and so do you. It is not that hard. PvE is easy, right? 

 

How do I get/upgrade gear?

The gear progression in this game is pretty easy to follow. Unlike other games where you have to get a set to drop from a dungeon to replace your old set, you just upgrade your gear using breakthroughs and evolutions. In this section, I will try and break down the process.

 

A. Weapon

 

In the beginning of the game you are given a training weapon, and after that a yellow quest will lead you to a new area which will give you a Hongmoon weapon. This is the weapon you will keep and upgrade throughout the rest of your playing time. The necessary breakthroughs and evolution weapons needed to upgrade your Hongmoon weapon are shown in the evolution interface. Hover over the items to know what you need and where they are acquired.

 

 

B. “Armor”/Soul Shields

 

In this game, you are not given armor pieces (for example; chest plates, those do not exist in this game). Your armor and the stats you get from “armor” are given to you via Soul Shields. Soul Shields can be acquired from dungeons, mobs, exchanging them from merchants, etc.

 

While leveling, Soul Shields are not too important. I would advise you to upgrade them every so often just for the health increase, but do not pay too much attention to the other stats. The Soul Shield route I would suggest is this:

• Stalker Soul Shield (from the Stalker roulette in the starter area)

• Viridian Valor Soul Shield (exchanged at a vendor for your Viridian Valor Stones) *Use this set at 20 and ignore the Blight Soul Shields that are dropped from the Blackram dungeon

• Golden Deva Soul Shield (achieved from the roulette in the Cinderlands)

• Cinderlands Valor Soul Shield (exchanged at Yehara’s Mirage from the exchange merchant for your Cinderlands Valor Stones) *You can skip this if you do not have enough stones to exchange

• Pinchy Soul Shield (achieved from the Pinchy Roulette in the Cinderlands)

• Moonwater Valor Soul Shield (exchanged at Hogshead Hamlet using your Moonwater Valor Stones)

 

After you have hit 45, run Skittering and get the Dokumo set for the crit and health. After you have done this you should get

• PvE: Full Blackram set from Blackram Supply Chain 6/4 man and E. Sea Fleet 24-man. *You want to keep farming these until you get a perfect set with the maximum vitality and critical

 

A question I see a lot when it comes to Soul Shields is “which set/stats are best for my class,” and the only thing I can tell you right now is that pretty much every class wants the same stats when it comes to PvE: Critical and health.

 

“But I am a tank class!” Stop right there. Tanking in this game is not about absorbing damage and having a high defensive stats to take hits. Tanking in this game is about keeping aggro through damage and blocking/evading shots so that you do not take damage. Your max level Soul Shields want to have the optimal amount of crit and damage stats on them in order to keep up. Personally, if I see a Blade Master with defensive stats on their Soul Shields, I will smash my face into a wall because they do such awesome damage as a class but the player is now gimped because they do not have the damage stats because people think that block/counter classes need to build into tanky/defensive stats. You do not. Just learn the mechanics of every boss and do what you can to avoid taking damage. Dealing damage is the main priority for every class in PvE.

 

You will need to keep farming Soul Shield pieces so that you can get a perfect set with the maximum health/vitality and offensive stats on them. Once you do that you will want to fuse Soul Shield pieces with high crit stats to your perfect pieces in order to increase the critical percentage on your set. This is an RNG process, but once you get the maximum crit numbers on all of your pieces you will see the difference.

 

• PvP (for open world/faction, since gear does not affect you in 1v1 and 3v3 arenas): Moonwater Arena set from the Misty Woods faction merchant. You need to kill the opposite faction camp boss and he will drop a chest that contains a bag that you open that will give you a random number of exchangeable seals. *You want to keep farming this area until you get a perfect set with maximum vitality and critical defense

 

In open world PvP is where you want to be tanky. You want all the defense you can get in order to tank hits. Let your weapon cover the damage stats!

 

C. Accessories

 

As you are leveling you are given a Hongmoon accessory set which includes a necklace, earring, and a ring. These are given to you while you are leveling, and you upgrade them just as you upgrade your Hongmoon weapon.

 

Here are a couple guides that should help you out with weapon and accessory evolution:

 

Weapon/Accessory Evolution by Baalar

 

D. Gems and other stat upgrades

 

There are two ways to upgrade stats on your gear, aside from upgrading them. You do this through

 

• Gems

• Fusion

 

Gems can be bought off of the Auction House, obtained through crafting, or via the Transmute interface. You want your Gems to boost your weapon in terms of damage stats, so avoid all of those “defensive/evasion” gems and go for straight damage stats like “attack” or “additional damage” procs. From my experience in game, the best gems are:

 

• Diamond - Additional Attack

• Ruby - Heroic grade with Damage/Attack modifier; triggers on attack

• Amethyst - Heroic grade, Lifesteal on critical hit

• Sapphire - Additional Attack/Damage on enemy block or evade

• Citrine/Topaz - Additional Attack/Damage when enemy is stunned or knocked down

• Aquamarine (not sure what they are called on NA/EU, but on other servers Aquamarines are gems acquired through events) - Additional Attack/Damage, Lifesteal on critical hit, 10% chi/focus recovery upon taking damage

 

Later on, all these gems can have special procs attached to them, such as lifesteal, crit two times, etc. These types of gems are extremely rare but also very strong! Here is an image of what my staff was equipped with on the Taiwan server:

 

 

Fusion is a way for you to upgrade your Soul Shields. I touched on this a bit in my Soul Shield section of this guide, but here I will explain and show you how fusion works.

 

 

Fusion works through the upgrade interface which allows you to use stats from other Soul Shields to your main Soul Shield set. This process is RNG and you will not always get the maximum amount of crit, so you have to be sure to collect multiple fusion pieces and keep at it until you get the number you want. I would suggest that you only do this on perfect pieces so that you do not lose too much on a “fodder” piece, but you can still go ahead and upgrade your “fodder” pieces if they have got a critical stat on it (just do not spam fusion for the perfect number as you will be replacing the piece later, only do it once) To fuse pieces together, there are required ingredients. In the screenshot above, you see that the necessary ingredient to fuse the two is Fusion Powder. Fusion Powder is obtained through breaking down Soul Shields.

 

What do I do with my extra weapons, soul shields, and gems?

Break them down. When you break them down they give you materials that you can exchange for cool stuff via the Transmute tab.

 

 

Breaking down weapons gets you:

• Element Powder

• Trash

 

Breaking down accessories gets you:

• Element Powder

• Trash

 

Breaking down Soul Shields gets you:

• Fusion Powder

• Trash

 

What are crafting guilds? Which crafting profession is best for my class?

Crafting guilds are guilds you can join in order to craft certain things in this game. Crafting can either be a great way to make money or a cheap way for you to get the things you need. No crafting profession benefits a specific class, so read up on all of the crafting and gathering guilds and choose the ones that interest you the most.

 

Here’s a simple guide that shows each crafting guild and which gathering professions go hand and hand with it

 

I am 45, what do I do now?

Congratulations, you have made it to max level. From here, you can dive into endgame content which consists of

 

• Dailies

• Endgame Dungeons and “Raids” (24 man instances)

• Arena (1v1 and 3v3)

 

A. Dailies

Currently, the dailies that you want to focus on are your faction dailies, Moonwater area dailies, “Big 4,” E. Fleet Supply Chain 24-Man, and Blackram Supply Chain 6/4 man. Some lower level area dailies are also important, as they give you materials that may be important to you, so it is up to you to keep up with that as well if you feel it is necessary.

 

Faction dailies give you faction seals that are essential to leveling up your guild, and later on faction seals are very important to you as they can be exchanged for stuff. Also, there is Blackwyrm which is a massive faction world boss and the drops from this boss can be exchanged for some pretty awesome gems and other neat stuff.

 

Moonwater dailies are pretty quick to bust out and award you with money and Moonwater Valor Stones which become very important later on when it comes to guild crafting and Hongmoon skills. Make sure you are going to the Moonwater notice boards and doing your dailies and turning them in for these Valor Stones. Later on you will need tons of them.

 

The “Big 4” dungeon dailies are Skittering Tunnels, Brightstone Ruins, Hall of Ogong, and The Pigsty. These dungeons give you evolution and breakthrough materials and also drop some pretty important things within them such as:

 

• Moonwater Crafting Recipies

• Moonwater Tear - Crafting Material

• Moonwater Refining Stone - Crafting Material

 

These dungeons are a great opportunity to make you money, and they go by pretty quickly when you have got a competent party.

 

E. Fleet Supply Chain is a 24-man instance that you can enter which features a ton of dailies that can award you some easy gold. Grab the daily quests from the NPC outside and follow the instructions on each quest.

 

 

It is fairly easy to do, as many people will be running this instance as well so if you get lost you can always just follow the crowd. In addition to gold, this area is also a good way to get necessary upgrade materials, critical Soul Shield pieces to increase your crit by fusing them into your current set, and “fodder” weapons that you can break down to make Warrior Souls or feed into your weapon to increase its experience.

 

Blackram Supply Chain 6/4 man is the current Heroic grade dungeon that we have that drops the accessories and weapons necessary to max out our gear. This dungeon also drops upgrade materials (Poharan perfume), fodder weapon and accessories (Volcanic set), max level Soul Shields (Blackram Supply set), and fancy costume pieces. If you need, I have a guide out for this dungeon that you can follow if you are not familiar with the instance.

 

B. Endgame Dungeons and “Raids” (24 man instances)

 

As I explained before, E. Fleet Supply Chain 24-man and Blackram Supply Chain are the current endgame instances. Aside from doing these as a daily, these are also important to keep running for their valuable drops. They are a great way to make money and who does not like having money? More 24-man raids come out in the future.

 

C. Arena

We currently have the 1v1 and 3v3 arenas. When you queue up for these you have the option to fight an opponent 1 on 1, or to take a team of 3 to duke it out against another team of 3. There is a daily portion to arena which gives you a reward each day and later on (once the actual season starts) you will be awarded Zen Beans which can be exchanged for some pretty neat things. From my experience on other servers, these Zen Beans will help you get one of your Hongmoon skills and can also be exchanged for PvP accessories and upgrade materials (Naryu Silver Coins, which are important to both you for when you upgrade your accessories and your guild to help level it up).

 

What is the point of clans and why should I join one?

Not many people understand the point of having a clan in this game since there is no Guild vs. Guild system currently but I can assure you that clans are very important! Being part of a clan not only gives you a community of people to play with but as the clan ranking goes up to offers various benefits to you and your other clan members such as discounts within the game (weapon evolution, mailing discount, etc) and clan exclusive crafts. Later on we also get the clan outfit patch which gives us the option to create outfits for our clans and customize them how we like.

 

Here is a small preview of the clan outfits from the Taiwanese server

 

If you choose to join a clan or make one, please be sure you understand the necessary things needed in order to level up your clan. In order to unlock clan benefits, the chan needs to achieve a certain rank and the only way to do that is to be doing your faction dailies to contribute faction seals and soul stones to the guild vault and doing other dailies to get gold and Naryu Coins to donate to the guild vault!

 

Where do I get _________?

Most of the items that you want tell you where you can get them. Just hover over the item you want and look under the “acquired from” section.

 

What dungeons do I use my area keys on?

For those of you who got Master’s Packs, a Duelist pack, or are buying area keys from the Hongmoon Store, here are the areas that I suggest you use these keys on in order to speed up the leveling process:

 

• Viridian Key: Blackram Narrows (Blight Upgrade)

• Cinderlands Key: The Darkglimpse (this dungeon takes way too long to try and spam it to hope you get your weapon, just use a key on it or buy the weapon off the auction house) and Tomb of the Exiles

• Moonwater Key: Brightstone Ruins or Hujikar (use your best judgement on this, but I usually use mine on Brightstone Ruins, since I can solo Hujikar)

 

Use the keys that you get from the Master’s and Duelists packs as you will not need them once you hit 45! Also, the suggestions are just in my opinion and what I have done in the past. Many of the blue weapons can be bought off the auction house (in the case for Corrupted and Brightstone weapons), but if you do not want to use the money and do not want to spam the dungeon, then use a key.

 

Where do I get more keys/unsealing charms/hammers? I used all of mine. :(

All of these items can be bought from merchants around the area at a fairly high price. Your other alternatives are to buy them off of the auction house or to craft them yourself.

 

EVERYONE IS INVISIBLE. THIS IS BROKEN. WTF!!!!

Bruh, press CTRL + F.

 

And last but not least my biggest pieces of advice to you are to

• Use the lever method (8 beeps), AKA the way of the Bomani

• Play a Summoner because cat makes it 2v1

• Play a KFM because of their 30 second stuns

• Play an Assassin because of their permanent stealth which is really broken and OP

 

 

As I see more questions I will add to this. Mind you that this guide was created during the early 45 patch of Blade and Soul NA/EU’s release and the information may become updated as more patches come through, but the concept is still carried on. This guide/FAQ is just to answer a lot of questions and help you understand aspects of this game, not to be used as a step by step guide to success. Use the information you gain from this guide to find your way. c:

If you have any questions and want to ask me personally, you can catch me on stream at twitch.tv/popstarpaci!

[Xellon]

nice guide :)

[Ruwalk]

Thank you very, very much for this quick little guide. Been browsing class guides and what not but the weapon thing was pretty confusing. Glad to know I wasn't wrong in just upgrading my Hongmoon weapon. Wish I had the space to keep all those itty bitty soul shield pieces you get as extras in the starting area to break down. :S

 

Also, now I know starting over and dealing with the queue again was actually not a bad call on my part. As I made a few mistakes that I will definitely not make again.

[Laufie]

So much hard work. Thank you for looking out for the plebs, Paci.

P.S Marry me.

[Rallo]

Thank you!

[Samyaza]

Quote

 

Use the lever method (8 beeps), AKA the way of the Bomani

 

Can anyone elaborate?

[xcr]

Well done Paci ! ;)

[VRock]

really nice guide Paci and i like your stream =D

[Paci]

@Samyaza It's an inside joke. xD

[Desc]

nice guide!

 

just want to add a bit about obtaining keys/unsealing charms/repair tools

 

there is a little solo dungeon called Underroot (forgot the location, I'm on queue) where you can just enter -> skip to the end -> open chest repeatedly to get a chance at obtaining one of those three items (most of the time you'll get repair tools)

[Paci]

3 minutes ago, Desc said:

nice guide!

 

just want to add a bit about obtaining keys/unsealing charms/repair tools

 

there is a little solo dungeon called Underroot (forgot the location, I'm on queue) where you can just enter -> skip to the end -> open chest repeatedly to get a chance at obtaining one of those three items (most of the time you'll get repair tools)

The thing about that is that it takes a key to open the chests, I'm pretty sure. :c But it does help for other items!

[Desc]

oh damn is that right?

 

I didn't notice that the last time (didn't notice my keys amount dropping), well i'll try it later again just to satisfy my curiosity

 

a shame though ==

[Random]

Good guide! I will ask you this though 

 

Wouldn't it be best to try to achieve all the soul shield achievements first before fusing them o: ? 

[DemonPyro]

Well I'm gonna bookmark this incase anyone ever repeats the same shit over and over, thanks.

[PopstarPaci]

On 1/23/2016 at 10:20 PM, Random said:

Good guide! I will ask you this though 

 

Wouldn't it be best to try to achieve all the soul shield achievements first before fusing them o: ? 

If there is a Soul Shield achievement for that set, sure. c:

[SlayerEdge]

Awesome guide man keep it up. I have just reached level 45 finally and I was just wondering if  you had any tips to start making gold?

[Buji]

I am new to this game, and just get to level 45. How do I join the 24-man E. Fleet Supply Chain? Do I need to make a party, or just walk in?

 

 

[ShivaoftheEast]

So the shoul shields have random HP amount (the Misty Woods set) ?? I thought it was a fixed HP amount, damm that is annoying..

[Ssuperkid5]

Would the Infernal Lord Soul Shield Set be a good transition between the Pinchy and Moonwater Set? It gives a ton more health than the Scorpion (Pinchy) one does.

[Prototypemind]

A lot of people get the Infernal set and fuse Scorpion pieces to it for the crit.

[Maret]

Quote

Use this set at 20 and ignore the Blight Soul Shields that are dropped from the Blackram dungeon

 

Could you elaborate on this? Is the Viridian Soul Shield better for any reason in particular? I got the set for the achievement but I'm using the Blight one right now...

[PopstarPaci]

17 hours ago, Maret said:

 

Could you elaborate on this? Is the Viridian Soul Shield better for any reason in particular? I got the set for the achievement but I'm using the Blight one right now...

Yep! I think back when comparing stats the Viridian one was better. Even if the stats aren't better, it's leveling soul shields. Don't focus too much on the soul shields as your main priority is to be leveling up. The Viridian and Blight shields are so similar that you shouldn't waste your time running Blackram Narrows over and over just to complete a set of Soul Shields that will be fully replaced within the next couple levels.

[Maret]

Quote

Yep! I think back when comparing stats the Viridian one was better. Even if the stats aren't better, it's leveling soul shields. Don't focus too much on the soul shields as your main priority is to be leveling up. The Viridian and Blight shields are so similar that you shouldn't waste your time running Blackram Narrows over and over just to complete a set of Soul Shields that will be fully replaced within the next couple levels.

The Blight one has better stats. You have to run Blackram Narrows multiple times for the evolution weapons anyway, and if you finish it 10 times you get 400 max HP, so I got the soul shields as an afterthought. The only cost that comes with them is unlocking them, I guess.

[Lanfear]

Hi I saw that you play on TW and was wondering if you could shed some light for us on weapen progression once level 50 cap lands? if indeed you feel western bns will follow tw bns model.

 

afaik a fully upgraded hongmen weapens only use is to be broken down for a pirate soul? Will this pirate soul drop elsewhere/is it really worth maxing out this hongmen weapen?

 

Also a huge concern for me and my freind are accessories. What happens with those at lvl 50? Will they continue to evolve? Will there be alternatives?

 

Not at all fearing the grind or too greedy to spend my gold but with ncsoft recently saying level 50 patch is alot sooner than we think I can't help but have these concerns.

 

 

 

[Gershwin]

nice post should be a sticky