Greetings everyone!

[luckonluke]

Hello, I have been playing this game quite unconsistently since november. I have tried a few classes, and opted for a blade master and an assassin, the latter one being now lv 50 (ign: Clairevoire).

I made this thread because my interest in the game is growing, and I would really love to get a bit deeper in its mechanics, but I am really at an odd about finding a resource for freshmen to introduce me into this world. Let me better explain myself:
I have played a bunch of hours, but so far I have limited myself to following quests with some outfit grindings and rare pvp experiences. My connection is not consistently great, so I don't expect PvP being a major part of my play experience. To speak more clearly: I hover around 140 ms in the bad days and 90-100 in the good ones. I am very patient and i can wait for those better days to try the arena, so it's not really a problem atm. What worries me the most is that i can't seem to break the veil between me and a good understanding of the game's mechanics. I have seen videos about how to build my characters, and i am familiarizing with cooldowns, buffs and debuffs, but somehow this doesn't make me independent. I might be a stupid, and in such case i apologize.

Yet the problem exists. All the guides and posts i've read so far seem to be for people more experienced than me, and i couldn't figure out how to adapt that knowledge to my ignorance in order to make things better. I don't know the terms, and i don't seem to find a glossary. Do you by chance know if there is a guide around to start blade and soul from scratches? One where i could see the general or specific ideas behind the ways characters are built, for example, or one that could suggest which dungeons i should exploit the most and which avoid, and why!
My main is the assassin atm, where can I find an assassin guide 0 to 100? One that could explain which builds are better when you can't perma stealth because of true vision for example, or one who could pin-point me how to choose my soulshields? Entire features of this game are also completely unknown to me, and i don't know how to start using them since i can't tell what they are there for. One example is soul shields' fusion!
I am not asking to have the dinner ready, i'm ready to put my mind at work to explore and understand things but i have a descouraging feeling like i just can't get a clearer look at things. Please help me out!

[Shuchin]

Hello Clairevoire,

Your confusion is perfectly understandable, I think. Blade and Soul has a surprising depth to it, in that you can spend hundreds of hours learning how to "crack" dungeons, floors in Mushin's Tower, or how to PvP properly.

 

That means that the majority of information out there is on a quite high level, assuming an already high knowledge of the reader. This can be hard to get into, but will only get better with time.

 

Unfortunately I know no easy answer, there is no single simple resource to point you to, no "B&S manual". That said, there are a lot of good resources out there, from freedomplays, blade and soul academy, bnstree, bnscoffee, posts on blade and soul dojo, reddit and on this forum here.

 

I would recommend to tick all the questions you have one at a time, and slowly grow into the game. That's what I did. :)

 

Concerning the soul shield choice, look on the net for "The Cheat Sheet" by Praetor19, it is a very good resource for this and other things.

 

About SS fusion, here's a quick breakdown:

- Since a recent update, you can only fuse crafted tiles into your soulshields.
- Crafted tiles can be made with the Soul wardens, or simply bought via marketplace from other players
- Each fusion has a maximum possible value, which depends on the SS that you upgrade, not the crafted tile.
- The actual bonus depends on the crafted tile. You chose which stat to upgrade and depending on the tile quality you get more or less of a stat boost
- the bonus is not fixed. If a tile says "defense 254", it will upgrade ~60% - 100% of that value. Higher quality tiles will yield the 100% value more often
- fusing a tile on top of an already fused piece will overwrite the fusion, so the value can go down

 

As for what to fuse, everyone recommends critical rate for PvE to help with enrage timers, while PvP advice can be complex and centres on critical defence and pierce mostly.

Let me know more questions and I will try to help. :)

[dualistique]

Best place to start is to ask questions on what game mechanics you have a hard time understanding.  You could read all the guides about Assassin/BM rotations, skills, etc.. but if you don't practice it, then you won't get good at it :).

 

It's unfortunate that we do have to wait so long for the Boss Training Room that KR client has, but for now, the best is to go into the dungeon and keep trying and practicing.  If you die, don't worry.  Just have a tough head cause there will definitely be people that will be frustrated with you or start blaming you.  Find yourself a nice guild that will take you through these dungeons for experience.

 

You'll want to do as much Silverfrost Heroid Dungeons (purple) as you can because they give good gold, as well as good practice in using iframes (resist skills) and performing certain mechanics.  Of course you'll notice people requiring certain AP or gear for certain dungeons, so you'll be limited at first on what dungeons you can use.

 

You have to treat this game more like a fighting game than a standard MMO where you just sit there and press buttons whenever you're off cooldown.  You need to be able to react to the bosses' attacks, canceling animations of moves for faster rotations, and learning how to do things like stacking Poison/Bleed at the same time.

 

I usually recommend newer players to start spending time in Mushin Tower floors to help you understand a better knowledge of your class since it's a solo instance, so you have to rely on your own skills/instinct in order to survive/pass each floor.

[Shuchin]

Yes Mushin's tower is in a way a marvelous idea for this style of game, and very consistent with a martial artists Wuxia mentality:

 

It's as if your Karate Sensei had pointed you at a mountain and said: "climb that!", and only after you reach the top you understand why Sensei made you do it.

 

I still remember how I started Mushin's Tower, a little lvl 45 KFM with 320 AP, and I was thinking "they got to be kidding this cannot be a solo instance!". XD

 

And then I slowly worked my way through the floors.

 

Floor 1 taught me how to use CC skills.
Floor 2 taught me to use positioning to win.
Floor 3 taught me how to develop a strategy to crack a game mechanic.
Floor 4 taught me how to interrupt a special attack.
Floor 5 taught me how to tank and beat an enrage timer.
Floor 6 taught me how to manage HP and dodge red AoEs as a tank.
Floor 7 taught me how to get the most out of all my skills and read a complex attack pattern.

 

It's perfectly fine to get help and advice when rising through the tower, but it's an excellent idea to do it just so you can learn about all the things that there are that you can learn.

 

And basically what is so nicely visible with Mushin's tower, transfers to anything in the game. All those challenges help you get better, and the amazing thing is that even after years, there's still room for improvement. :O