New player questions

[Crunchyblack]

I made two character to start off with, soul fighter and warlock.  Other than knowing warlock has a skill everyone likes in endgame pve and the soulfighter has a team rez...i dont really know what they are like at endgame.  Which class should i focus on getting there first?  My hope is that both characters are more than just a skill groups like.  Not really interested in pvp at the moment.   Any advice as to what to expect as either class?

 

Also why cant i register for that warden gift set, i click it and it just spins and nothing happens.

 

Whats endgame look like for blade n soul.  I get the whole "lets do esport in a mmorpg lulz" is one but what else is there really?  This game sort of slipped in under the radar for me and i never really read much about it.

 

Finally who the hell took my name in game? Really you decided to name yourself after one of the worst rappers in three six mafia who was relevant (arguably) like 10 years ago? Sigh...that was my role.  Seriously every single "no one ever picks this name" names was taken in this game...im impressed...population is that big here?

 

 

 

[Why Bother]

24 minutes ago, Crunchyblack said:

I made two character to start off with, soul fighter and warlock.  Other than knowing warlock has a skill everyone likes in endgame pve and the soulfighter has a team rez...i dont really know what they are like at endgame.  Which class should i focus on getting there first?  My hope is that both characters are more than just a skill groups like.  Not really interested in pvp at the moment.   Any advice as to what to expect as either class?

For starters, unless you're a whale, or a no-lifer, getting into the game will not be at all easy for you, as the game, and especially the player base are not at all new player friendly. Next, this game is not alt friendly, as there is far too much per character grind to be able to devote much time, or effort into anything more than the one character if you're not a whale, so whichever you pick, will need to be as you enjoy it, not as you think other people may find you useful. Although if you're not a whale, then you'll still need as many other characters as you can handle, as you'll need them to do various daily, and weekly tasks, as well as events to provide gold, and items for your main, some have a full account of ten characters that they do all that stuff with, which is where being a no-lifer comes in, as that's quite time consuming.

 

24 minutes ago, Crunchyblack said:

Also why cant i register for that warden gift set, i click it and it just spins and nothing happens.

Your account may be too new.

"If your account was created before 10 AM PDT today, August 21, and has at least one level 10 character on it"

 

24 minutes ago, Crunchyblack said:

Whats endgame look like for blade n soul.

Grind for gear. Everything after you finish the story quest is just about grinding for gear, which largely requires a party, but much of the player base want nothing to do with you if you don't meet some absurd standard for dungeons starting with Naryu Sanctum, and know the "mechanics" quite well. You'll need to read/watch guides, as the game tends to do a poor job of making it clear what it expects you to do in a fight, and if you don't know, you can expect people to sling curses your way, or just drop out of the party.

[Crunchyblack]

well thats peachy.

 

so what class warlock or soul fighter would be stronger for endgame gear grind in your opinion.  I like both but if i can only focus on one im not sure if warlock does the combat system justice, however i feel like range would be easier.

 

Im really not all that sure which one to focus on, i really wont know which class i like for endgame until i invest time into the class, im sure id like either.  I just dont want to invest a bunch of time into a class then realize its worthless at endgame, or a class shunned, or a class with LOTS of endgame issues...which im not even sure this game has those things.

 

Thanks for the reply though.  Gear grind is good. I like it.

 

Oh and ive read up on the class specific forums, again hard to grasp the issues with each class without much frame of reference.  I feel like there are a lot of pvp complaints for soul fighter vs warlock.  I kinda like the whole warlock concept, aside from whatever the heck the western renamed warlock class is...a red ticket chucker of sorts.  Also im not so sure of the stationary summon being all that useful in a movement focused game....as cool as the thing looks...

[Thrameos]

So long as you don't mind the gear grind it is a very good game.   

 

As for the end game, it is quite different from the early or mid game experience.   End game is mostly about running very challenging 12 raids once a week.   They are extremely difficult requiring a great deal of team work.   All of the end game gear requires successfully completing these raids.   Early game is simply running through lots of deserted areas doing quests where all the NPCs magically follow you in your travels across the land.   The hardest to understand is the mid game.  Once you finish the main quest you will have bare minimum equipment to do anything and almost nothing will be possible to do without a clan but the very low reward old content.  The thing to understand is that the mid game is not for grinding, it is for waiting.   Just log in for less than an hour do the events and the low level daily and over the course of a few months they will literally give you enough equipment to start with reasonable content.   Trying to grind that same equipment will not be humanly impossible.  By the time you grind out another piece they will give it to you for free and you will feel like your time is wasted.  Once you spend a few months just doing dailies and events the game, you will find you can finally start climbing.  Their catch up system involves constantly cutting prices on low end gear, meaning buy something and next week you will find it for half off.  

 

For reference I started the game at day 1, but quit after 6 months when it became clear that game engine and player base did not support the massive open world raids they were going for.   Because of the way rewards in open world work, you simply can't compete and thus no way to get any sort of drop.  They moved away from that and merged a bunch of servers together so that it is now much more reasonable.   I have been back for 10 months and gotten myself to the high end of the free to play players (low end whales).   

 

As for the character type, you should chose the play style you like.  Play styles are pretty varied in the game.   If you grind up something which doesn't match your play style you will just be unhappy.   I run a BD but have a reasonably decent level SF alt.  I can tell you that the game pretty much hates melee because no matter what your dps is for melee ranged will always smoke you because most of the boss attacks are in your face as a melee.   You will spend half your time dodging, blocking or moving for positions while the ranged guy can just pewpew away.   All character types are needed for the end game.   Some rare ones like SF are well liked.   Of the other hand the WL buff is the most looked for and you will find yourself able to join parties much sooner with a WL than an SF.   But that doesn't mean you should just chose a class based on popularity for the late game.   After 10 months I am just now entering actual end game content and what classes were popular when I started changed a lot since I came back.    

 

I can't tell you about the WL but SF is much less gear dependent than the BD that I play.   SF has a lot more burst and thus can get away with less gear and still feel strong.   BD on the other hand is a true long game continuous damage per second class and thus they have to keep hitting continuously while dodging everything from the boss.  Miss even one dodge and you are pushed back, out of rotation, and losing 20% of your damage.  Sadly my SF is more likely to get drops than my much stronger BD as a result.

[Crunchyblack]

exactly what i was looking for thank you.

 

i never really thought about the melee needing to continually dodge vs range, that alone sort of solidifies what i wanted to do anyway, which was focus on the WL for now.  I do sort of feel its 100% lacking in all the things that make this game unique so i was really thinking hard about a support melee but that can wait or i can use level up tokens on the melee and see if its something i want to invest in.

 

As a weekend warrior i have a feeling the mid game waiting is going to be rough for me though.  Maybe if the event stuff is something i can quickly log on for an hour or two and do but even then gaming during the work week is not guaranteed for me.

 

really appreciate the detailed breakdown,

[KzE]

6 hours ago, Thrameos said:

Of the other hand the WL buff is the most looked for and you will find yourself able to join parties much sooner with a WL than an SF. 

This will change after we get warden next month.

[Deadly Intent]

6 hours ago, Crunchyblack said:

Maybe if the event stuff is something i can quickly log on for an hour or two and do

The problem is that the number of event tokens required to get anything useful (weapon, soul or aura upgrades) during this event will require more than just logging in on the weekends.  It will be a daily thing, because of the length of time that the event runs.  

[Granger]

Warlock is horrible for a main because they're literally ass to level and even past story need a lot of help and good gear before they become decent. On the plus side, with the VT badge you can pretty much ignore gear requirements cause few pass up on blackwing. 

 

 

SF meanwhile scales really quickly into great dps without needing a lot of gear, so in many ways it can be a less frustating experience as first character.

[Thrameos]

It is going to be pretty tough making it through mid game without running dailies.   The magic number in this game is between 100 and 200.  That means that if you don't get that rare drop don't worry once you have completed between 100 and 200 runs of something you will have enough tokens to buy that rare drop.   Trying to grind up even 2 days on the weekend will get you barely enough progress to stay in the game.  You won't complete the events (which require the magic number of tokens to complete) and by the time you achieve the magic number the item you were grinding for is no longer meaningful in the game.  Progress in the game requires that 20-30 minute a day to earn the tokens and thus make progress to push you forward.  

 

I will defer to others regarding the WL.   They echo exactly what I was saying.  Choosing based on the current raid meta is not very meaningful as it will change in time.  SF was so bad last year when I started back that it felt like a waste of a level 50 voucher.  Now it is absolutely great to play.  And SF does not suffer nearly as bad as a pure melee in that part of their rotation is expected to be in ranged mode.   While a lightning BD has to drop out of stance when they mess up and thus are stuck doing nothing on a mistake, SF are much more versatile.  Unlike the BD, they actually have a block which will reward you for landing it (raise chi levels), and when they jump out of the fight they switch automatically to ranged mode so you don't drop to zero damage while waiting for your approach to come off cooldown.  Thus it is a very rewarding class to play relative to others I have tried. 

 

Once you have the gear requirements any class is viable and fun, but many of the classes require a lot of dedication to get there.   It is one sad BD that goes into a dungeon as a DPS class and simply can't even get 5% boss damage because the gear differences.   Sure the comparable geared BD would nearly hold its own against a FM or gunner in terms of raw damage, but it is a lot of frustration for a class in which one mess up in the CC/grab combo and the boss mech wipes the team.  Thus an under geared BD is literally a nuisance as they can't contribute in damage and they have abilities that can wreck the fight on a mistake.  After spending the effort to gear them and learn to use the abilities to complete the mech rather than wrecking it, then a BD is a valuable addition (though I think some people may disagree).   

[Crunchyblack]

So there is absolutely no solo content after the campaign, it not even worth it to play if i can only play twice a week, and by the time i get everything i want the devs will make those items or class irrelevant?

 

Basically starting new is a complete waste of time? 

[KzE]

11 minutes ago, Crunchyblack said:

So there is absolutely no solo content after the campaign, it not even worth it to play if i can only play twice a week, and by the time i get everything i want the devs will make those items or class irrelevant?

 

Basically starting new is a complete waste of time? 

This game is a mega-grindfest. The bare minimum to do are the dailies every day + the actual event. Thats like 1 hour / day + weekly stuff.

[Chad1123]

4 hours ago, KzE said:

This will change after we get warden next month.

Nothing will change at all, the only thing will be different is that we are gonna have 2 different classes with 2 for different buffs. In a theoretical point of view warden since is both tank and sb will be more usefull but it dosn't mean necessary that wl will become useless, wl will become the next sin, in parties if u have already a KFM , SINS are not ganna get kicked from lobbies. Now  there is a huge lack of wls and i think warden will be mostly played day one then the population will slowly get lower, in kr i know warden didn't become so popular how gunner before was, so for now we need to wait to see how it goes and  people to get VT badges and BT accesories to became really viable. Personally i like the idea of warden and i think i will gear him up and maybe i will switch even main if i really like it.

[Thrameos]

I timed my dailies for two characters today.   It took 15 minutes to run 2 solo content and one LFP to finish daily.   Then another 12 minutes to run enough to get the event reward plus a little time to do inventory management.  Thus I finished both characters in about an hour.  So I would say most days you can complete enough to do minimum in 30 minutes.  This doesn't mean you can't have fun playing with less, but you aren't going to ever progress toward the end game.   This game doesn't have a lot of casual content for the weekly player and even a hard core weekend player would be losing so much it likely would not be worth.    So long as you do the minimum each day for a few months, they will give you enough equipment (event items + daily energy purchase) to allow you to have fun.  But without that minimum time it is not likely to be worth because you will actually fall behind as the starting equipment will end up out of date.  

 

The "solo" content after the campaign is limited to challenge matches and PvP.  Challenge content is really equipment dependent and not for anyone casual.  1v1 PvP doesn't require equipment.   You can with a little equipment solo the low level dungeons.   The basin area is the main 1 player grind area which completes one daily and most days have 2 activities that are just give-mes either that you can LFP or solo.   

[Crunchyblack]

Im 100% pro grind, i play path of exile and diablo 3 for years, doing nothing more than the same content over and over for nominal gear gains or to remake a character just to do it.

 

I love grind.  Problem is when the grind is exclusive to only the top end playerbase.  There needs to be something to do, repeatable dungeons i can solo ect.  Please tell me there is this kinda content.  I have no issue wasting a whole sunday trying to find a party for a hard mode dungeon but the game cant be so crappy to only cater to whales and no lifers with no inbetween content....can it?

 

Actually LOVE the combat system, i could farm mobs for ages.  One day someones going to get it right and put in an ARPG into a 3D combat system like this and bank.

 

For now im just going to carry on in my forever alone little world of the campaign hopefully ill find something useful to do midgame-endgame 

 

 

[dragon4277]

Dear crunchy u cant  compare the grind of d3 and path of exile with bns. Bouth games are not p2w. U grind and reach the endgame and can keep grinding. The grinding of D3 and PoE are rewarding.

 

BNS is something else. U grind ur way up reach the low end of the whales. Then a patch comes and everything u ever grinded is useles and u have to grind ur way to low end gear of whales again. U will never reach same state of whales unless u pay like the whales.

 

U grind ur way up then a patch comes and another char gets buffed or ur char gets nerfed and u end up with a nearly usless char. ANd if u want to start another char it takes months till u reach ur state.

 

I left bns 1 year ago and played bns for 2 years. At the beginning bns was good. For the envoirment it is still good. But the gap between f2p and p2w players got just to high to be f2p friendly anymore.

 

The p2w players dont carry f2p players as well. The f2p players are worked out with their own grinding so they wont help new players. Basicly u will be in a Teamplay game where u need good geared players to gear urself up but noone is willing to help u.

 

Still i would come back just for the storys and the enviorment. But this gap between p2w players and f2p players compared to the time the grind consumes is just unbearable.

 

BNS is not rewarding for f2p grinders.

[Junamaki]

There is a lot of things you can solo such as mushin tower, outlaw island, circle of sundering and celestial basin could be considered solo as well. However, as far as dungeons go you have to be decently geared to solo anything that is worth soloing.

 

If your goal is only to stay caught up with people who spend money however or have a lot of time to play then you will be very disappointed and might as well not play. However not every new player is focused on becoming a top player so I won't assume.

[dragon4277]

Dear Junamaki. True. But BNS is an MMO. The community is harsh and unfriendly with a bad language. And NC Soft is doing nothing against it. So if they see a new player they will laugh at him. Still u could just close ur chat. And whats left of an MMO nothing. So basicly i could go and play Final Fantasy. Has a nice story nice envoirment and so on.

[Junamaki]

2 minutes ago, dragon4277 said:

Dear Junamaki. True. But BNS is an MMO. The community is harsh and unfriendly with a bad language. And NC Soft is doing nothing against it. So if they see a new player they will laugh at him. Still u could just close ur chat. And whats left of an MMO nothing. So basicly i could go and play Final Fantasy. Has a nice story nice envoirment and so on.

Most f2p mmos have a toxic community but that isn't the company's fault and shouldn't be all up to them to change it. Most of the players in BnS are grown adults they shouldn't have to be taught how to play nice with others. Btw the community really has nothing to do with what I was responding to, he asked about solo content.

[Thrameos]

Crunchy,

 

There is not a lot of mob grinding areas in this game, nor a lot that you can get from mob grinding.   The main grinding area is Celestial Basin which you will pass as you quest your way to max level and it provides a number of quests that rotate as you complete them.  You can grind the area for cheap exp charms that will push you toward level 13 in the current patch which would be above a fair amount of the average free to play population base but low for any whale.   It will also give you plenty of raw materials, but more on that later.

 

Other solo areas are the tower of infinity, circle of sundering, mushins tower, and outlaw island.  These are all challenge areas in which you face a series of bosses on your own.  Each has a specific set of equipment needed to pass as well as a series of mechs.   Depending on your class and your ping these are sometimes doable with less than the recommended.  They each give a specific piece of equipment needed for advancement, but usually not something for the causal player.  Rather they are specific tasks that each player is supposed to face during the game climb rather than something stand alone.   You may be able to grind these for exp and materials, but that is not their main intent.  I view this as challenge content.   They provide you with assessments of where you are in the game.   Too low and you can't clear it without perfect skill, too high and you can just skip the mech entirely.   The equipment you get from these is chosen such that it will be just a bit of stretch to complete.   Meaning you grind these for the item about the time you need the item.  It is possible to skip these by grinding another item up and then coming back when it is easier.

 

The next is the low level dungeons.  These are old content.  They tend to be fairly sparsely populated unless they happen to be on the game rotation for the day.  The rewards for these dungeons is small.  It is so insignificant compared to the daily that most people run them only to complete a daily task.   They can be farmed but usually for one specific outfit.   The mechs have all be reduced sufficiently that it won't give you any flavor of what this game is all about.  You can punch LFP (Look for party) on any of these and get matched with a team pretty quickly during peak hours.  Off hours expect a bit of a wait.

 

The next is the weekly train.  This is the first large raid that you will experience.  However, getting into these for a low level character is hard.   It is not so much that the community is actually toxic, but time is precious.   Most public groups are made up of free to play players who are on the low end of gear.   They are hard pressed to actually complete those dungeons themselves without one or two big fish coming to help them out.  Failure is a very real possibility and when it appears that a group won't cut it then everyone bails pretty fast.   To combat this people tend to require a minimum gear to get in.   If you don't meet the gear spec you will get tossed.  It isn't nearly as negative as some people make it out to be.  But it can be frustrating to waiting 45 minutes to just find a group to take you.  But this is an MMO and the point is not to solo everything, so you really should join a clan so that you can have friendly people around to help carry you.   

 

After the low level dungeons come the money dungeons, this is really where the actual player base is because here is the place where grinding is actually worth something.  These dungeons have some serious mechs and without the proper equipment you just can't pass it regardless of skill.  This is what people view as the toxic pay wall.  Noone hits  look for party as doing so just gets you a full team of undergeared people who if they play perfectly may be able pass but it may take an hour or more.  However, they are just as likely to get to the final boss do everything perfectly and simply not have the damage to clear.   They can of course try again by burning consumables and boost their damage enough to attempt a clear but unless they were darn close or really need it most people just bail.   Grinding the full set of the money dungeons lands you about 100 g a day plus material worth about as much.  Repeated grinding is possible as this is a token system.   Get enough tokens and you can buy equipment above the normal player base.  This what people are referring to as the grind fest as every free to play player has to push hard to get here and it takes a lot to push past it.

 

Then come the thing this game is actually about which is the weekly major raids.  These are 3 hours long full teamwork hard core mechs requiring everyone to participate.  These often feature some serious random number generator rather than pure pattern fights so people don't just need to know the mechs but actually can think on their feet.  The only people here are the experienced gamers that have ground their way up to compete or those that swiped the hongmoon credit card to skip the whole thing.   Item drops at VT level are worth thousands of gold and thus many days of a money dungeons and many weeks of low level dungeons.  Black tower (BT) is the lowest of these and any clan will help you get through it for your drops.  Assuming you get through all the equipment dropped in BT, you should be ready to tackle the next one (VT) and so on.  This brings us to the edge of the free to play zone.

 

Finally there is the whale zone, where free to play players need not apply.  These are hard mode dungeons, 6v6 unnormalized equipment battles, and  the latest raids.  Pretty much the only way to get there is to have paid.  You can mix with them in free to play by joining 6v6 assuming you don't mind 15 minutes of being pure cannon fodder.  The rewards are great but it is truly elitist.   Many of them paid their way there and not all of them have the skill to actually handle the content.  Thus they overbuy equipment well above what is required to make up for skill and expect that the only people that should run those are those that did the same.  You can run some of this content which clan mates if you are lucky enough to find a clan both able to touch this content and not so elite to say "whales only".  

 

Now for how the reward system works.  Each area of the game gives you tokens for which you need to gather a specific number to buy gear is you don't get luck to get a drop.  As I said before it is between 100 and 200 tokens.   While many dungeons can be completed in 15 minutes with a properly geared crew, running these undergeared will take an hour or more.  Thus just trying to grind for your 100 tokens without the aid of friends or a clan is just going to be plain hard and will take so much time that the next tier of equipment will be out.  Most of the tokens from the low level dungeons are already removed or for outdated equipment.  Thus you really need to play daily events to skip that content and get decent gear.   No amount of grinding the solo areas will give you the equipment tokens you need.  At most it give materials required in addition to the tokens to unlock the items that you purchase.

 

Depending on where you are in this progression the game can look very different because you are interacting with different player bases.  I don't find it particularly toxic say compared to league where people seem to think their lives are depending on it, but the structure does cause tension and frustration.  It is easy to try to put yourself into an area you are not prepared for as the quest unlocks everything including content the people have no business being in without months of game play.   People rightly tell them they don't belong here mostly by simply leaving, sometimes kindly telling them, and very rarely brutally stating it.  If you go someplace you don't belong just take the hint, play the dailies and do a little grinding and you will get into those areas eventually as the actual game content is endless.  Last years whale only content is this years free to play.  The only sadness is they usually nerf out the mechs and cut the drops when it bubbles down.  Thus you will never get to experience the difficulty of 4 man blood shade harbor unless they happen to release a normalize dungeon for an event.

 

Quite frankly the early game does nothing to tell you what this game is actually about.  The developers didn't invest in any AI which would allow you to team up with NPCs to run old content nor teach you how to play through a dungeon mech.   Matching with current players while just get you someone who one shots everything in their path showing you nothing about the game.   There are a lot of players from other types of games such as yourself that try to plow through mob grinding your way up only to get past the early game and having absolutely no clue what this game is about.   Thus as my service to the community I am giving you the eye open view of what this game is about.   If you have the time to do the dailies and get all the free equipment you will likely find it very rewarding 6 months from now.  Grinding until you have that will mostly be a waste of time (except for basin farming which is intended for that) as you will end up in the same place but having burn a lot of time.  And it you think you can just grind a day a week, you will find nothing but disappointment.

 

Cheers!

 

[SalemK]

You can submit a ticket and request the name to be opened up if you really want it. They will usually free up the name if it wasn’t reserved, the person hasn’t logged in for a while, and they aren’t a high level.

[Crunchyblack]

Thanks for all the info, i was sort of confused if this was a pvp only at endgame type game.  Grind is fine, im an arpg fan so i enjoy grinds, especially with fun combat tied to it.

 

While i typically find large raids tiresome, hours finding a group then potential failure after several hours of trying ect, im not totally against it.  I have no issue with gearing up before i can gear up if that makes sense.  I just want to make sure there is SOMETHING at endgame that isnt "leet pvp duels"

 

As far as the name change, good info to know but really doesnt matter, i dont expect my forum name to ever be taken anywhere, its an issue ive not run into before, just strange is all.

 

One thing ive never understood, why expend so much money and development on a campaign like in this game if the sole focus is endgame gear grind.  Campaign was good for the first day but im like 25 and its starting to get old, and once i hit 55 i have a boatload of charms that will probably zip me to endgame level that day....it all just doesnt seem very smart, they could have stacked endgame with all sorts of stuff and given a one day tutorial campaign and everyone would be in the same spot with better and more content to grind.

 

Either way ill be sticking with WL, trying to make it to the endgame grind on a normal employed persons time, probably regret spending whatever i do, and maybe rolling a warden just to do it.  I hope i can get a month or two out of this game, mmorpgs are a dying breed.

 

Also something to consider, there are very few, hardly any, f2p korean mmorpgs with even a normal sized community so this game has that going for it, which is good.

 

Thanks for all the very detailed info, this stuff will help others interested in picking up the game.  I think this games reputation is more of a pvp centered game which it doesnt really seem like it really is, despite the funny attempt at esport.

 

Seriously they are sitting on a goldmine with this type of combat, stick this combat into a 3D arpg (like a destiny with melee and magic) 

[Thrameos]

Yeah I agree that the quest mode is overdone.   It wasn't nearly as tedious when the game was released.   They released a piece at a time as each area was opened.  This worked well when the main population advanced through the game, but for new players joining late it is just a huge hurtle that gives the impression that the game is empty which is most certainly is not.  They could also revamp the areas so that new players see the old content at their level and top gear see a world full of challenging areas.   But that is not their current direction.   I have certainly posed it as a problem on these forums.   But the quest mode has its defenders and as the developers don't read the western forums it is pretty hard to communicate this as a problem.  

 

The PvP esport stuff is pretty odd.   The community is pretty divided by activities.   PvP and PvE players are basically playing different games and you would have to be a whale to afford gearing up both paths as materials required for top gear in either are very expensive.   Add to that the division between F2P and pay to win players and you have a very diverse community.   If you want to see toxicity try queuing for 6v6 during bonus reward hours with no PvP gear,  you are basically ruining a group of whales game during double reward hours.  But once you understand the community and the rules, you won't find it nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.  The developers combat try this by making PvE quests to get PvP equipment.   But it often seems rather forced and thus the source of many complaints.   Similarly many skill unlocks require PvP play to get the required tokens.  Of course as the game naturally gives you a steady supply of tokens of different types as you do dailies you never have to set foot in PvP land if you don't want to and in time you will get those skills unlocked.

 

I wouldn't worry to much about having problems finding to find groups for large raids.   There are plenty of active beginner clans which take people with any skill or equipment level who will help you run weeklies assuming you are free to meet at the designated time.   There are a number of resources like discord groups and so long as you are not a complete loner you can make friends to help you climb.   Making friends in game removes a lot of those gear restrictions and as a WL many groups will be happy to drag you through some pretty wicked dungeons.  The highest level raids are meant to be very challenging so don't expect to clear them when you first join a progressive group.   It may take weeks to get the skill to pull off a raid, but you will have a blast doing it success or fail.

 

Oh one last note on going solo.   Beyond getting you through the mid game and helping you push through dungeons, clans other basic function is giving you bonuses.   Many activities in game can give up to twice as big a reward in terms of experience if you have a clan behind you.   It is linked to the clan PvP ranking so there needs to be a group of hard core whales in the clan to help push the clan wars score up.   Thus finding the proper clan to help you grow is pretty vital.  You can grind all you want solo but someone associated with a ranked clan will get the more peaches, more exp, and more PvP points for every activity they do in game.  Similarly factions make a huge deal in this game.  One faction dominates completely and being on the other side means settling for scraps.  Thus once you hit end of the quest, take a moment to glance over the clan wars scoring to see who is who in the world.  Find a well ranked beginner clan who operates during the hours that you play and watch for their recruiting.   Beginner clans are always losing people as people trade up to raid clans and many are very friendly.  (Okay the tutorials in the game are horrible and you have to play for months to discover some of this stuff.)