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New Player Guide from a new player's prespective
Still fairly new to the game. There has been things that are frustrating, so I thought I would try and help others who decide to start NW. If you are an experienced player and have a helpful suggestion for me to add please comment. Neverwinter is not a friendly new player game, (unless you want to spend a good few hundred dollars on it.)
With two character slots available at the start, it can be a little annoying if you are like me and want to try out the different classes. Fortunately character slots are not expensive, and if you don't want to put money in the game yet still trying it out, you can exchange Astral Diamonds (AD) for Zen. Slots also come with many packs, each race pack has one as well as other packs. You can just try out a class leveling to 20 or so and see if you like the feel if not put what you can in the shared bank before deleting. I would also suggest not binding any companion or mount during Your trial of the class. Some offers like the undermountain pack gave a companion, leave it in your shared bank until you have a character you want as your main.
Leveling is fairly straight forward. I am not going to get much into that. Once you have found the two classes (or more if you have gotten extra slots) you are wanting to level get them all to where they can do daily invocations. Get your 6 invocations a day in. This will allow you to focus on your main, but let your alts get bonus xp, raw AD, and celestial bags. You get one free companion from a quest and there are a bunch you buy for gold. I would suggest when you do your invocations to always have a companion who is not maxed ranked summon. When an alt starts having a lot of bonus raw AD do a random leveling dungeon.
Workshop. -- My take on workshop is to try and focus on gathering. You dont have a lot of space when you first start so try and let you adventurers and gathering skill level up as much as possible. You will want to get at least one profession up to level 20 quickly for the first upgrade. My suggestion is blacksmithing as it makes a lot of tools for the workshop. To level your professions start with just using up your moral each day. If you are doing this on your alts as well, you can't put a lot of workshop stuff in your shared bank. When you go to level workshop to 3 you need a lot of commissions. So even if you alts can only make lower level stuff it can help you get to the 500,000 commission faster.
Refinement-- You get a quest early on showing you how to refine. After the quest save up all refine points until later. There are only a few things that I would say are big to refine early on. Bonding runestones, You can get 3 rank 8s from some packs. Or you can buy some off the Auction house. Reasons why I say these are okay to refine while leveling. They do not get bound to your account or characters. This is big for a few reasons. Refining a bonding runestones advances all of you characters! Just put them in shared bank before switching characters. If you decide look I have a lot of AD I can buy a rank 15 bonding, you can always try and sell the one you have leveled up on the AH. I have read it is cheaper to buy high rank enchantments off AH the to level them. If you are maxing out your 100k AD a day most Rank 15s are still going to take 2 weeks plus to afford. That is not a complaint. With all the enchants you will need and runestones that would take forever without getting some lucky drops that sell for a lot. I recommend working on 4 enchants to start with. Why four? At 80 you can buy two rings, I suggest the ones with combat advantage, that can be put in your shared bank and transferred to other toons. This nice because for two spaces in your shared bank you are transferring two rings and 4 enchants (without the cost of removing them to share each time). I would suggest radiant as the four enchants.
Later as you are 80 and start collecting a bunch of artifacts and weapon sets. This is what you will want to use your refine points on. For reference I have five characters right now. Two that are my focus. On these two I spent my refine points I get on those toons on their equipment. Any of the others I use to enhance the bonding runestones, and enchantments shared.
There are two wards when refining that prevent you from losing your materials on a fail. I do not use either on the lower ranked enchanting stones or marks or potency. Since they are fairly cheap and easy to get. I use the green ward mostly because of cost. The blue ward save for the weapon enchants.
Companions-
Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian
Defense
Offense
Defense
Defense
Utility
Cleric
Offense
Utility
Defense
Offense
Utility
Rogue, Warlock, Wizard, Ranger
Offense
Defense
Offense
Offense
Utility
I put this as a reference to help decide what companions can help as you level. Ones to focus on are ones that give power. Outgoing healing if you plan on playing a healer. Hit points can be helpful especially when leveling. Augment companions seem to be the preferred companions. When soloing it can be beneficial to have one that provides threat. I have found this webpage to be greatly helpful. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fP_cUugHdsObvQDzLFijGA-mVm_qLmSy0MI62aTLkDM/htmlview?sle=true#
Whatever companion you are going to use as your summoned companion try to have at least four others in that category. A cheap mystic one on AH is energon Usually between 15-19K lower end buyout. For an epic companion that will give a 2.5% bolster to mystics it is helpful. Also gives a utility enhance of 24000 hit points. Early on that can only help a cleric but will more then double your hit points at that low of level.
Mounts, insignia --- I prefer the dominance insignia and judging on the prices on AH people agree with me. So before you refine any insignia. just a heads up you need 8 green 4 blue and 2 purple to make one gold. Aggression and skilled are helpful for getting those stats towards cap. Any unbound insignia you can try to sell on AH, any bound insignia that you will not want to use i go ahead and refine those.
Epic mounts are expensive, and legendary ones even more so. You can get epic mounts in the race packs and other packs (I would suggest waiting for a coupon to drop for 33% off any pack), these are account wide(also to note they give a companion that is account wide which can help your bolstering). Any mount you buy on the zen store is account wide, companions are not.
Campaigns-- Some games all earlier content becomes obsolete, not so with neverwinter. As you are leveling start the acquisitions incorporated at level 15 and try to get your weekly max each week. Towards the end you will get a Rank 14 enchant. Tyranny of dragons you can start I think it was at 25.
Elemental evil is a good way to spend your time leveling after 60. Maze campaign (gives a companion) is good to get going as soon as possible as well.
Make sure to complete black lake district quest line and and neverdeath graveyard quest line as you will get free bags from them. The first campaign you get from intro also gives a bag, mount, companion, reroll tokens...
Boons-- When leveling my first toon I went with power/crit, armor pen... At 80 as you gear up you will max out your crit armor pen and accuracy fairly easily. So my suggestion is power/hit points first tier. Power/(hit points, movement speed, or health potion) Movement speed is never a bad thing, the lingering medicine helps to up what your potions do. Tier 3 power/companion influence. Tier 4 power/health or lingering.
best in slot gear-- Orcus set is the heavy hitter. It might be a lot lower ilvl but the set bonus is the bigger thing. Some people will be nice about it others will tell you how your gear is #$%*. Look up class guides and you can generally find what is your BIS.
IF I think of anything else I will add to this. This is meant to help prevent other new players some of the frustrations I went through.
With two character slots available at the start, it can be a little annoying if you are like me and want to try out the different classes. Fortunately character slots are not expensive, and if you don't want to put money in the game yet still trying it out, you can exchange Astral Diamonds (AD) for Zen. Slots also come with many packs, each race pack has one as well as other packs. You can just try out a class leveling to 20 or so and see if you like the feel if not put what you can in the shared bank before deleting. I would also suggest not binding any companion or mount during Your trial of the class. Some offers like the undermountain pack gave a companion, leave it in your shared bank until you have a character you want as your main.
Leveling is fairly straight forward. I am not going to get much into that. Once you have found the two classes (or more if you have gotten extra slots) you are wanting to level get them all to where they can do daily invocations. Get your 6 invocations a day in. This will allow you to focus on your main, but let your alts get bonus xp, raw AD, and celestial bags. You get one free companion from a quest and there are a bunch you buy for gold. I would suggest when you do your invocations to always have a companion who is not maxed ranked summon. When an alt starts having a lot of bonus raw AD do a random leveling dungeon.
Workshop. -- My take on workshop is to try and focus on gathering. You dont have a lot of space when you first start so try and let you adventurers and gathering skill level up as much as possible. You will want to get at least one profession up to level 20 quickly for the first upgrade. My suggestion is blacksmithing as it makes a lot of tools for the workshop. To level your professions start with just using up your moral each day. If you are doing this on your alts as well, you can't put a lot of workshop stuff in your shared bank. When you go to level workshop to 3 you need a lot of commissions. So even if you alts can only make lower level stuff it can help you get to the 500,000 commission faster.
Refinement-- You get a quest early on showing you how to refine. After the quest save up all refine points until later. There are only a few things that I would say are big to refine early on. Bonding runestones, You can get 3 rank 8s from some packs. Or you can buy some off the Auction house. Reasons why I say these are okay to refine while leveling. They do not get bound to your account or characters. This is big for a few reasons. Refining a bonding runestones advances all of you characters! Just put them in shared bank before switching characters. If you decide look I have a lot of AD I can buy a rank 15 bonding, you can always try and sell the one you have leveled up on the AH. I have read it is cheaper to buy high rank enchantments off AH the to level them. If you are maxing out your 100k AD a day most Rank 15s are still going to take 2 weeks plus to afford. That is not a complaint. With all the enchants you will need and runestones that would take forever without getting some lucky drops that sell for a lot. I recommend working on 4 enchants to start with. Why four? At 80 you can buy two rings, I suggest the ones with combat advantage, that can be put in your shared bank and transferred to other toons. This nice because for two spaces in your shared bank you are transferring two rings and 4 enchants (without the cost of removing them to share each time). I would suggest radiant as the four enchants.
Later as you are 80 and start collecting a bunch of artifacts and weapon sets. This is what you will want to use your refine points on. For reference I have five characters right now. Two that are my focus. On these two I spent my refine points I get on those toons on their equipment. Any of the others I use to enhance the bonding runestones, and enchantments shared.
There are two wards when refining that prevent you from losing your materials on a fail. I do not use either on the lower ranked enchanting stones or marks or potency. Since they are fairly cheap and easy to get. I use the green ward mostly because of cost. The blue ward save for the weapon enchants.
Companions-
Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian
Defense
Offense
Defense
Defense
Utility
Cleric
Offense
Utility
Defense
Offense
Utility
Rogue, Warlock, Wizard, Ranger
Offense
Defense
Offense
Offense
Utility
I put this as a reference to help decide what companions can help as you level. Ones to focus on are ones that give power. Outgoing healing if you plan on playing a healer. Hit points can be helpful especially when leveling. Augment companions seem to be the preferred companions. When soloing it can be beneficial to have one that provides threat. I have found this webpage to be greatly helpful. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fP_cUugHdsObvQDzLFijGA-mVm_qLmSy0MI62aTLkDM/htmlview?sle=true#
Whatever companion you are going to use as your summoned companion try to have at least four others in that category. A cheap mystic one on AH is energon Usually between 15-19K lower end buyout. For an epic companion that will give a 2.5% bolster to mystics it is helpful. Also gives a utility enhance of 24000 hit points. Early on that can only help a cleric but will more then double your hit points at that low of level.
Mounts, insignia --- I prefer the dominance insignia and judging on the prices on AH people agree with me. So before you refine any insignia. just a heads up you need 8 green 4 blue and 2 purple to make one gold. Aggression and skilled are helpful for getting those stats towards cap. Any unbound insignia you can try to sell on AH, any bound insignia that you will not want to use i go ahead and refine those.
Epic mounts are expensive, and legendary ones even more so. You can get epic mounts in the race packs and other packs (I would suggest waiting for a coupon to drop for 33% off any pack), these are account wide(also to note they give a companion that is account wide which can help your bolstering). Any mount you buy on the zen store is account wide, companions are not.
Campaigns-- Some games all earlier content becomes obsolete, not so with neverwinter. As you are leveling start the acquisitions incorporated at level 15 and try to get your weekly max each week. Towards the end you will get a Rank 14 enchant. Tyranny of dragons you can start I think it was at 25.
Elemental evil is a good way to spend your time leveling after 60. Maze campaign (gives a companion) is good to get going as soon as possible as well.
Make sure to complete black lake district quest line and and neverdeath graveyard quest line as you will get free bags from them. The first campaign you get from intro also gives a bag, mount, companion, reroll tokens...
Boons-- When leveling my first toon I went with power/crit, armor pen... At 80 as you gear up you will max out your crit armor pen and accuracy fairly easily. So my suggestion is power/hit points first tier. Power/(hit points, movement speed, or health potion) Movement speed is never a bad thing, the lingering medicine helps to up what your potions do. Tier 3 power/companion influence. Tier 4 power/health or lingering.
best in slot gear-- Orcus set is the heavy hitter. It might be a lot lower ilvl but the set bonus is the bigger thing. Some people will be nice about it others will tell you how your gear is #$%*. Look up class guides and you can generally find what is your BIS.
IF I think of anything else I will add to this. This is meant to help prevent other new players some of the frustrations I went through.
1
Comments
Astral Diamonds. You can convert a max of 100k a day. It says it will auto convert up to 100k a day.
A note on this If you are capping out every day you will not see any auto converting. If on Monday you make 200k RAD (raw astral diamonds) and convert your 100k. On Tuesday you will not see any auto convert. If you are unable to log in Tuesday, on Wednesday you will auto convert 100k that you had from Monday. I do not know if it goes back more then just one day, I cap out every day so.
When leveling you are limited on ways to make RAD random leveling dungeon is a good source.
Another thing to point out is that You can convert AD to zen for purchases on the zen store. It will cost a good amount of AD usually the buyout is somewhere between 450-550 ad per zen.
Companion upgrades- AD versus companion tokens.
A Common rank 20 companion can be upgraded to Uncommon for Astral Diamonds 50,000 or Companion Upgrade Token 30.
An Uncommon rank 25 companion can be upgraded to Rare for Astral Diamonds 250,000 or Companion Upgrade Token 60.
A Rare rank 30 companion can be upgraded to Epic for Astral Diamonds 500,000 or Companion Upgrade Token 90.
An Epic rank 35 companion can be upgraded to Legendary for Astral Diamonds 1,000,000 or Companion Upgrade Token 120.
Since on the AH companion tokens will usually run higher then 500,000 AD for 90 but less the 1,000,000 for 120 you will want to just use AD on the common and uncommon. Rare will most likely be better to use AD unless prices go way down. To upgrade epic it will be cheaper to buy tokens off the AH or get lucky and get them from other sources.