Illusionary Stone: Advice for those that feel thrown to the wolves.

SerenityCNB - Dreamweaver

Hello all. I'm writing this little brief guide as a means of helping those people (new and old) who feel that they've been thrown to the wolves with the latest expansion, via the illusionary stone (95 pill.)

They've come from no level/low level to near endgame level/endgame level, and alas, they're finding themselves in a bad position because the gear PWI gave them is...well, let's be frank, it's **** gear at their level, and with no cultivation, and no coin, they suddenly are finding themselves in the hot seat as they struggle desperately for help with their cultivation, and in joining the bh squads and warsong squads that we're forming. I decided to write this when giving advice to another player this morning, because I feel that it could help multiple people that are finding themselves in this position.

This brief guide will attempt to cover:

*A means of acquiring coin enough to perform.
*A means of acquiring gear good enough to perform.
*A means of acquiring enough coin to shard and refine.
*A bit of an order of what you should do to when you first become "Superleveled" to 95.
*A way to obtain material needed for better endgame gear. (Compatible with most players today.)
*A light in the darkness for those of you who are losing hope and losing faith that you'll be able to perform, to obtain sage/demon skills, to join high level squads...


At this point, you may be getting frustrated, irritated, and reaching your wits end...

Firstly, I wouldn't recommend quitting, I would recommend finding someone nice in game that is willing to teach you. It helps to have people from the same class, but even people of different classes can offer you some insight.

Here is some advice offered...

Your skills: You CAN learn them. For now, since you are newer to the game, don't focus on getting your sage/demon skills due to their high price. For now, focus on getting your proper skills to level 10. What I would do is to get your cultivation at least to the level of aware of vaculty. (Preferably get it to sage/demon....make sure you research sage/demon path to decide which one fits your playstyle more).

Once you at least hit aware of vaculty, go into Morai, via the Morai Teleporter. From here, join an order. But also do your morai quest chain. (Yellow quest). SAVE your gear from this quest. This is Morai 95 gear, which is GOOD PvE gear. Equip this gear as a STARTING ENDGAME GEAR. That's a good step that will make your life MUCH easier.

Now, you'll also notice in Morai, that there are certain skillbooks that can be obtained through orders. You can only do one order at a time though, so for example, you can't join luminesce and corona at the same time. It has to be one, then the other. However, there is also an advantage to being in the order. The Morai skillbooks...well, more specifically the morai skillbooks from BASIC SUPPLY (The Advanced supply is untradeable, so when you earn enough prestige and influence for those books, only buy the one you need for your class.). Learn your skills, of course, but also it may help you to sell some of these skills for coin. (250k-300k is reasonable...quite cheap, and makes people want to get it now, as a pose to taking the time to join another order for that skill.).

You earn Morai skills by both prestige and influence from your order. These are obtained by quests. These quests are:

Wraithslayers missive-Weekly, Resets on Monday.
Timed quest from advanced supply person - Once Daily.
Divine Emissary - 2 white quests you can choose, or 1 purple one.
Where is Jinato- Done daily. (You won't even have the option for this one for a while.)

As time goes on, and your influence and prestige go up, and your money...you'll have the option to buy sage/demon gems. These are good pieces to refine at endgame...not the best, but they are a better option. Later on, you'll want to go for these...either to equip or sell. Here is an overview of which orders give which ones, and their coin cost. You'll need to pay a small prestige/influence fee too....

Shroud - Garnet...(Physical Defense / Physical Attack)...Around 1.5 mil.
Corona - Sapphire (Magic Defense / Magic Attack)...Around 1.5 mil.
Luminesce - Citrine...Around 3.1 mil. (HP Bonus)

Now, those shards cost a bit, but you'll be selling them for several million more. That nets you more coin to work with.

>>>CLICK ME!!<<< This will help you to understand Morai a bit better.

Now, your approach isn't going to end there.

You're also going to join Nation Wars. This goes on every Friday and Sunday night from 8:20 p.m. to 10:20 p.m server time. Let me let you know now, this is a PvP event.

You WILL get killed.
You will die repeatedly.
You will suffer, and get frustrated.
You will hit your opponent for pitiful, laughable damage, and they will hit you like an artillery strike hitting a dollhouse.
*MORAI GEAR SUCKS BADLY IN PVP...both in offense, and defense. This is because it's defense comes from warding levels...which are useless against other players, and your offense comes from slaying levels....which are useless against other players.

Let me also let you know this....even though my armor is significantly better, even I get killed, and die repeatedly, and get blasted to kingdom come, so have fun with it to the best of your ability. (I recommend reading a nation wars guide on the forums for more clarification.)

At the end of each nation wars, you'll get supply tokens sent to you in the mail. You likely won't get much at first, but things will get better. The tokens may take up until midnight to come.

Take these supply tokens, and you can do one of 2 things... make rapture crystals...make uncanny crystals from the forge of contemplation. (Yes, you have more options, but these should be your focus.)

Now you can do one of 3 things:

*Sell them to catshops. (Quickest way, least productive.)

*Make a catshop yourself and sell them/Sell them via world/normal chat. (Slower way, more productive...you also must be competitive.)

*Save them to G15 your armor/weapon.
(Not the Morai one. This works for when you get a TT99 GOLD or Nirvana G13 weapon...which you should NOT equip at this stage. Do NOT equip this type of gear until you have your Nirvana G15 gear, unless your blacksmith/tailor level is level 7. This way, you can get help from trusted friends in forging your weapon. If you don't take my advice and decide to equip it anyways, then you have to do it yourself, and no one can help you take it to the next stage because it's bound to you. It's best to keep that TT99/Nirvana G13 gear in the bank until it's Nirvana G15. Keep wearing your Morai 95 armor in the meantime.)

Either way, you've got millions worth right there. Yes, it was painful, and yes...if you had a charm on, it's likely hurting.

Note: If you need hp/mp potions:

*Do blue divine quest from divine order of void...trade the divine order in for hp/mp potions from the divine order of shadow.

*Buy tokens from the catshops. Trade them in to a PWI Botique agent.

3 - MP Herbs (50 Herb Yuanxiox).
9 - HP Potions. (50 Crab Meat Juanixiox.)

Depending on your class, you might need a few of these.

Something else. You'll want to refine your endgame gear regardless of what class you are. Even morai 95 gear should be refined and sharded to some degree.

So.....

You can earn mirages from the mysterious old man at level 100+.

Simply trade in your Nirvana talisman to him through the prompts that he gives you, and choose between 5 mirages, 5 ultimate substance, or 10 chips. You also have a chance of earning 55 mirages from BH1 quests. (Bounty Hunter 1 quests at level 100+.) Aside from this, you'll have to buy them from the catshops.

Mirages are used for refining. Refining is done at the elder of each major/semi-major city. You may need quite a few before attempting.

In terms of sharding...I would buy FLAWLESS shards for my morai gear. They're cheap shards, and are the normal shards people buy to equip their gear before advancing to something better.

They'll cost around 200-300k a pop, but by this time you're earning a decent enough living that it won't break you.


Note: Another way to make money is to go and open Twilight Temple. People that are saying looking for TT Openers/Twilight Temple Openers do NOT require you to have good gear.

Your job is simply to arrive there in a timely fashion. (Illusion stone to Twilight temple if you're far away.). Now, go inside and your should see a blue portal on the floor. That's the one that they went in. Enter there. From here, buff them when they get there. (If you're a veno and there is a cleric/mystic, ask them if they want bramble before giving it to them.) Wait for them to open the instance. Let them pay you. Once the door in front of you vanishes, and they run off to fight, you're good to go. Drop squad, and leave the instance. (They're only paying you to open...which is why your gear won't matter. You can run there stark naked and they won't care.)

When you leave the instance, you will arrive at a town. This town is close by TT (Twilight Temple), so feel free to run by the instance, wait outside of it, and when you see another person PAYING for an opener in WC, tell them your class. (Do it quickly as you do have competition.)

Most people on my server sell for 100k. Some sell for 75k. Some try to go cheap and sell for 50k.

In any event, it's free coin for you, that only costs a few minutes. This way you're earning much more coin now, and you're starting to see some growth. You can shard your character in a day with flawless with this. (Provided there are a lot of TT runners, and you get picked before others message them.)



PV (Phoenix Valley): Is a place where you can earn lots of experience. I wouldn't recommend you going there just yet. Not until you get decent armor-shards and refines. Simply put, this place is a mob fest. I'd practice knowing your toon, and getting better gear before entering there.

FSP: You need to be rebirthed to level 100 again if you are to run this dungeon. This is your first time reaching level 100, so this place isn't accessible to you. Once you are able to run it, your revenue will increase.

You can also get money from level 100+ bounty hunter quests. If you're feeling insecure, I'd recommend you take a squad where they are already at the boss. But a lot of the bounty hunter quests, you should be able to do in Morai gear.

Rewards include-

55 Mirages. (Good for refining or emergency income.)
40 socket stones. (Sell it to a catshop.)
55 Mysterious chip. (Put it in the bank and forget it for now.)
2 Ecstacy Cards - (Sell it to any npc for 2 million coin.)
1 Excitement Card - (Sell it to any npc for 5 million coin.)
Orb of cultivation - Uhhh...xp (Experience) item.

Main instance for when you want to farm your G16 gear is Warsong. TT is good for farming your TT99 gold gear, and if you've saved enough raps/uncannies from nation wars, you'll have enough to turn this into G15 gear. (You can equip Nirvana G15 gear with no fear of penalty.) This gear is endgame, and puts you right on the road to an even better endgame gear...Nirvana G16. (Second best gear variant in the game....the gear that I have.) You earn basic badges and you can earn weapon/armor molds here. Look at the forges to see which gear you need. What I would recommend if you're running this... If you're an arcane class, you should have at least 5000 hp unbuffed (That's being lenient). Though 4k is doable. HA classes should be looking at even more, as should LA classes.

There are other ways to earn coin in game, but this should give you a good start. Good luck to whomever is reading this, and I hope that you find this information useful. If anyone else wants to chip in other strategies to help the newer level 100 players, feel free to do so.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Special thanks to Poopinpanto for commenting about cube of fate:

"You forgot cube. Can make profits from that and getting to room 60 as well for cog that sell for 3.7+ to cat shop or 4mill+ as your own shop. Join luminance and work towards getting a free CoF letter daily with those points in morai you get by doing quest takes 20 points. Double cog run once you learn cube well can get you like 6mill+ a day depending on how your cube run went in spending some coin, but you make it back and triple basicly.


Also the traditional farming herb/materials on routes on the world map or in heaven or hell can produce great profit but at a time consuming cost but at least there is no farming competition now days so its all abundant. Herbs in hell to farm are probably your best bet at the farming stuff because you get more per dig."


I personally left Cube out, because I hate cube and have never successfully completed it, but I will include it, as it is a legitimate way to make good coin in the game.

Below are links to understanding the Cube of Fate:

>>>CLICK ME!!<<<

>>>CLICK ME!!<<<

________________________________________________________________________________
Special Thanks to Whoa_Nutz for his information regarding armor:

"Just a thought, but find someone with level 7 tailor and blacksmith. Blue 2-star gear beats the moria gear at lvl 95 in my opinion and the mats are farmable."

I can't confirm the validity of this statement, but I can say that this is certainly another potential path to take. Personally, I would go towards Morai gear because it's free, and pretty much straightforward, but this is another path for those interested.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Kind of sad how PWI put them at 95+ but did it in a way that they'd be ill-prepared for the higher leveled instances. Should have at least given them gear that would equal Morai 95, or come close to it. It's not really the new players fault that their gear is like that. Some are legitimately new to endgame. So if anyone has anything else helpful to add. (Please don't troll them. I'm truly trying to help them)...feel free to do so.

Oh, and on an additional note- Find a faction that's willing to run instances for newer players, and see if you can get them to help also. Hope that helps.


**SPECIAL NOTE TO HEALERS AND MORAI WEAPONS** - You're a healer. I commend you. Now, healer to healer, you're going to want to invest in an at level weapon. Whether it's legendary or TT, or maybe you'll get lucky and get a lunar weapon for free, you should invest in a NON-MORAI weapon to heal with. The reason is because while Morai weapons are great for attacking, they are so because of their slaying levels. Those slaying levels do not help your heals, so keep this in mind, as you run an instance. Ideally, you'll get a level 90/99 green TT weapon, or a general (legendary) weapon. Even some Frostcovered Weapons are good too. What's important is that your heals are strong enough to allow you to serve your purpose as a healer.

(I go into some more of the endgame gear in my cleric guide, so regardless of your class, if you're new here and wondering about endgame gear too, it may be worth checking out...regardless of your class...whether you're a blademaster, a psychic, a barbarian or a fellow cleric, I believe that you'll likely find something there to help you gain a better understanding. (Specifically if you look into the parts about gear on the guide.)

So....Your checklist...

Do your cultivation quests...reach the level or sage/demon. (At least reach aware of vaculty.)

Look up your class skills, and level your important ones first as you obtain the money. (Helps to look at the many guides on the forums.)

Go to Morai- Obtain the quest gear, and equip it as a starting endgame gear.

Earn more coin through various means, and obtain your morai skills.

Earn coin enough to shard and refine your gear.

Earn coin to buy general/legendary necklaces, or other elite necklaces. (Check your respective class guides for more detail.) They'll cost a few million, but they'll boost your defense a lot.

**If you did not already have a genie, or if for whatever reason, your genie is pitifully underleveled, you should invest in an average genie. These genies cost anywhere from a few hundred thousand to a couple million, but it's worth it to use them. Look at your classes respective guides for advice on genie skills.**

Save up for G16 ideally, though other paths exist. (Research these paths on SerenityCNB's cleric guide if you don't want to go G16...keeping in mind that the stats differ depending on class.)

Become more competent at your class, and begin to join higher instances.

Have fun with the game, and help others. b:victory

Toliman - Raging Tide

Very good guide.
Can be sticked in the Beginners section of forum.

SerenityCNB - Dreamweaver

Thank you. I'll ask for a sticky like you recommend, but I'll give it a chance to be displayed on the general forums first, so that it can get more traffic before I ask for the sticky.

Whoz_Nutz - Raging Tide

Just a thought, but find someone with level 7 tailor and blacksmith. Blue 2-star gear beats the moria gear at lvl 95 in my opinion and the mats are farmable.

Good suggestions and guide.

b:thanks

DaKillanator - Raging Tide

Great guide, 10/10.

I might also recommend they rebirth. Gives them the benefit of leveling up at a faster pace than normal and learning their class if they so desire.

Also maybe a guide to Warsong? Just a link to a video or written guide maybe

Poopinpanto - Heavens Tear

You forgot cube. Can make profits from that and getting to room 60 as well for cog that sell for 3.7+ to cat shop or 4mill+ as your own shop. Join luminance and work towards getting a free CoF letter daily with those points in morai you get by doing quest takes 20 points. Double cog run once you learn cube well can get you like 6mill+ a day depending on how your cube run went in spending some coin, but you make it back and triple basicly.


Also the traditional farming herb/materials on routes on the world map or in heaven or hell can produce great profit but at a time consuming cost but at least there is no farming competition now days so its all abundant. Herbs in hell to farm are probably your best bet at the farming stuff because you get more per dig.

tofhalo

Thank you very much for this guide, it was very needed b:victory

SerenityCNB - Dreamweaver

Bumping this to help the players new to endgame level/new to the game in general.

(If anyone wants to sticky this to help them, feel free to do so,)

Evryn - Morai

Alternative way to handle this, if you, like many, took the double pill and boosted your character to an instant 100:
- Do cultivation. Go Sage/Demon asap. You will need to get some help with this.
- Do Morai quest chain for Morai 95 gear. Especially the weapon. You may need some help with the 4 Morai bosses in the quest chain (Corpse Orchid, Dark Radiance, and the 2 Wu's)
- Rebirth!
- Now go and do the standard one-time quests for the level, and slowly level up again while enjoying the huge powerboost that Morai 95 gives you up to the low level 90's. The standard quests give good coin and XP, and allow you to learn your class as you go along a bit.

cosmiccricket

Is there any good way to get people to help you with cultivation quests besides perfect horns? I've been able to solo everything up to the 59 quest for Transcendent, but the Valley of Disaster is filled with mobs and I can't afford to buy the wines to remove them. IIRC they are like 350k each.

I rolled venomancer, so I suppose I could get some levels into my glacial walker in order to solo Valley of Disaster, but I don't know about any good ways to level my pets. All people say is "do Cube," but I don't have the money to get into Cube. At least you can find level 83 petite sawflies in the wild, but the only glacial walkers that seem to exist are around 28.

Evryn - Morai

cosmiccricket wrote: »

I rolled venomancer, so I suppose I could get some levels into my glacial walker in order to solo Valley of Disaster, but I don't know about any good ways to level my pets. All people say is "do Cube," but I don't have the money to get into Cube. At least you can find level 83 petite sawflies in the wild, but the only glacial walkers that seem to exist are around 28.

When people mean Cube, they mean room number 4 in the Cube, which has a ton of very easy enemies that you can oneshot. Getting in there is practically free: All you need is one Badge of Duty (get one from the cube dog for free, per day) and a few Dice Tickets (snowmen drop those, or you can make them from Mysterious Chips). You simply start the Cube adventure (requires one duty badge and a dice ticket), and try to roll the dice to get into room 4. If you go past room 4, simply use town portal and start over.

Baalbak - Dreamweaver

dont forget OHT armors as a viable 90+ variant. Random attributes might wind you up with a bad piece on your first couple of tries - but also means you've got the possibility of gettting some really good mods - and there are three "tiers" to this gear - 2 star blue, 3 star purple, 1 star gold. Gold stuff pops out only rarely, but the 3 star purples are better than TT90 and arguably easier to come by (and craft with a level of 1). Power, Spirit, Dex, and Stamina materials all come from card bosses which can be summoned inside of instances that are un-wined. In order to summon a card boss you need all 8 cards for that boss, obtainable by trading in mystical tome frags (can be purchased from a shop). Another way to make OHT golds is by having a piece of lunar green 95 gear decomped and then paired with tome frags to make "Lunar Deity" (which is actually OHT gold). OHT gold is a level 100 requirement though. And.. if you wind up with a bunch of **** pieces - decompose em for perfect stones and either fill your genie or sell em for anywhere between 2k-4k a piece, which is 120-240k per piece of decomposed arm pieces.

but before doing any of that, you'd need some funding if you're going it alone. in such case i recommend that even though you just went from 1 - 95, you gotta play the game from square one anyhow in terms of cultivation. Then while you are at it, might as well do the "legendary" quests especially the Tideborn Coming of Age ceremony and treasure hunt quests - as they give the biggest coin rewards.

cosmiccricket wrote: »

At least you can find level 83 petite sawflies in the wild, but the only glacial walkers that seem to exist are around 28.

something that some people do not realize is that the low level versions of pets will grow up stronger in the end than if you catch the high level versions. The level 8 petite sawfly (or might be called vespine), if i remember correct, will grow up to be the strongest dps pet available aside from the legendary pets. You can level that up by spending time in raging tides having it kill staunch worms for you, in much the same way you level pets in the cube.

Evryn - Morai

Staunch worms are no longer viable, the latest patch made them level 100 mobs that are not oneshottable. Cube is best.

fantasya310

cosmiccricket wrote: »

Is there any good way to get people to help you with cultivation quests besides perfect horns? I've been able to solo everything up to the 59 quest for Transcendent, but the Valley of Disaster is filled with mobs and I can't afford to buy the wines to remove them. IIRC they are like 350k each.

I rolled venomancer, so I suppose I could get some levels into my glacial walker in order to solo Valley of Disaster, but I don't know about any good ways to level my pets. All people say is "do Cube," but I don't have the money to get into Cube. At least you can find level 83 petite sawflies in the wild, but the only glacial walkers that seem to exist are around8.

There is also a place just near Etherblade (south east of it) where you can find lvl (?) mobs, they are like the mobs in cube, the only disadvantage is that u'll find also some normal squishy mob with them. I found them pretty useful expecially for air pets but generally for every pet. b:victory

Viktorian - Archosaur

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

When people mean Cube, they mean room number 4 in the Cube, which has a ton of very easy enemies that you can oneshot. Getting in there is practically free: All you need is one Badge of Duty (get one from the cube dog for free, per day) and a few Dice Tickets (snowmen drop those, or you can make them from Mysterious Chips). You simply start the Cube adventure (requires one duty badge and a dice ticket), and try to roll the dice to get into room 4. If you go past room 4, simply use town portal and start over.

There is a better way unless they changed cube since i did it last. Since you need to get to room 4, all you need to do is get any die and reroll it(take it to the cauldron and get the thingy again) till you get the thrown die:3

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

Baalbak - Dreamweaver wrote: »

something that some people do not realize is that the low level versions of pets will grow up stronger in the end than if you catch the high level versions. The level 8 petite sawfly (or might be called vespine), if i remember correct, will grow up to be the strongest dps pet available aside from the legendary pets. You can level that up by spending time in raging tides having it kill staunch worms for you, in much the same way you level pets in the cube.

While it is true that lower level pets are, in general, stronger when leveled up than pets tamed at higher levels, the petite sawfly is not the highest DPS free pet, and never has been. It's merely the highest DPS free flying pet (though the cloud skatefish is a very close competitor, before the sawfly's evolution.) The highest DPS pets are all ground pets... the dino (level 101 tame), the varicose scorpion and its variants (were level 2, now I think level 20) and the wanderer (was level 10, now likely 25 or so.)