How hard is it to catch up and how much has changed?

[Karrya]

I stopped playing BnS around August of last year and would like to try playing again now.  I remember last time I played I was still struggling to upgrade gear and farm enough gold and resources.  Is the game terribly grindy right now?  And how much has changed since last year?  My main was a Blademaster and I really enjoyed the combat system and PvP, so I'm looking forward to getting back into that and also I want to see what has been added to the story.  I'm just worried it'll be overwhelming trying to re-learn my class and all the changes that have probably occurred as well as trying to grind and farm to get caught up on gear.  Any tips or advice for a returning player?

[xInikox]

It's actually fairly easy to catch up. The main story quests give you enough XP for you to be at level 50 in a week or less, depending how often and long you'd play the game for. I personally haven't been playing for a year so I can't compare how it is now and back then, but it's extremely easy to level up and finish the main story. 

[Annysan]

As a reference, main story gives you the upgradable weapon, which is the legendary weapon. So you get a nice start there. Furthermore the amount of mats has been lowered (in general) plus a new option till stage 10 has been added (not sure what they are called in english, the translation would be void fragments, anyway some white round crystal thingys), where you need almost no mats compared to the old path. So that is definitly easier. Plus you get all the mats from the main story (for legendary 1), so that is nice ;)

 

Skills have been changed as well, but they were made easier (but also some options of play have fanished, as you can only have one element)... If you want a quick recap of what to do, there are hongmoon training grounds (F12) where you can do tutorials or practise on bosses. 

 

Im an personally not into pvp, but if you want to do 6v6, there is indeed some grind to do, as gear is important there. Of course arena is still euqalised and gear does not matter.

 

So as a advice, continue the story, you get mats and soul shields there which you can keep till the story is over. And don't be suprised, I think you get the legendary "pre-weapon" (which you can change to dark or light version) after act 6 (or first quest act 7, not sure), so that takes a while ;)

You also get gems/pet/soul from the story, which is also nice (the gem system was changed as well, but I would first do the story and see if you still like it ;))