New player and progression

Hello guys wanna ask you some questions!
I wanna start playing L2 again (I tried playing yul 2 years ago reaching lvl 90 so i dont know a lot of the game ) and now i can devote myself to this game for quite some time. How much time will it take me to even get a little bit competitive and have fun by crafting/enchanting/raiding etc? I'm not going for hero or anything special, just wanna enjoy the game. If I like it a lot, i may even consider premium account. Does it offer THAT much more and is it worth it? And what tips or guides can you suggest so I can have an easy start and progress fast in the game?
Thanks a lot!

 

Let's see, sharing my personal experience.
Progression, I would separate it to two paths - EXP and gear.

EXping is incredibly easy, especially if you are a returning player.
In your warehouse there should be special items, most important is the returning hero box.
There are cosmetic and practical rewards.
Practical ones include over 1m shots (enough for a while), EXP and SP runes, Vitality items.

The trick is, you have to use your brain. Not easy I admit, to be efficient you must have higher IQ than a cactus. Not even a nice, domestic one you buy for your girlfriend (you know she would just let a normal plant die), but a desert cactus.

You should get a mentor on low level. There are plenty of players offering 24/7 online so you can level up whenever it is convenient. Eventually you can ask them for an extra buff.
You should get PA. F2P game model is nice, but if you want to be anyhow serious, PA is a must.
You should join an Academy. It gives an Aca Circlet (NPC in Gludio) with 10% EXP boost, also later you can exchange for an accessory with stat bonus. Also you can take an EXP buff from bigger clans, will be very important later.

Now comes the smart part. What gives the best exp bonus in the game besides your credit card?
It is vitality! Your main goal is to save vitality, ideally till the next reset on Wednesday.

So you have your lv 1 character. Got a mentor already, in Academy, optionally with PA. What will you do?
You can ask your mentor for a Fortune Bag - Stage 3. Approx 6kk value, no decent mentor would refuse that. Using it will kickstart your adventure and you will be on lv 38 already, skipping all the time-consuming and boring lowbie quests.
Do class change quests. No details needed, you are a big boy/girl, you can manage. Learn the necessary skills only.

By now you should be 41, 2nd class and yet you haven't lost any vit and haven't touched your items.

From here there are 2 possible ways depending on your playstyle.

You can search for Raid Bosses all over the map. Killing one in your level gives 3-9 levels and with any melee or wizard class you should be able to solo them till lv 70. Not a joke.
Above 65 you should ALWAYS visit Hellmann raid at midnight - usually there are few parties to kill it, providing few levels. It means, extra exp every 4h.
70+ you will have to team up especially for the solo raids, none of them need more than 3 good ppl or 5 'less good' ones. These raids are camped, so you need to be lucky.
Disadvantage is that the bosses are hard to find, especially 60+.

Other way is questing and grinding. There is a chain quest teleporting you to locations on your level, the tasks are totally similar, kill Z amount of mobs, grab reward, clap your hands for the extra levels. Again, just grinding with extra rewards from quests.
You lose vit and it may be annoying to kill zillions of the same mobs - if you are old player and farmed for example Demon Dagger recs, you may be pervert and even like it.
Again, you lose vit here.

Best is if you mix those two strategies, search for bosses and when there is no fun, go for the grinding and quests. Most of the quests give 1 hour exp buff so you may time them to finish one, go for boss, get levels, back to quests.

Back to 41. The new reward system will give you everything you need. Basic gear, XP runes.
Pop up the exp rune every hour when you play, you will get plenty of them, no need to save. When you are about to do a long quest, feel free to use the Vit potions - maintaining for certain amount of time can be a good solution.
If you are a hardcore player I would advise to save them for 100+ when you will have to exp normally, up to you.

So you are climbing up, made 76, 3rd class.
Always do the quests for Paulina sets - they are special sets with abilities, weapons with double SA and attribute. Check L2Wiki for those quests, but you should get ingame notification also.

After the bosses / quest chain you should be 84, close to 85. Ask your mentor or a friend to finish your leveling - much faster than solo. Some players do the entire Dragon Valley quest with an awakened summoner, like 4x speed and not much worse exp.

85, gratz! Go awaken.
Remember the golden rule, save vitality.

There are several instas to do and leveling guide, I wrote it to some other topic.
Most important is group kartia. It gives the most exp, with basic quest gear you can do with a group of 3-4 players. Heal, DD, DD, iss for shadow to save vitality.
Sidenote: save vit in kartia: use iss Devil's Movement in first room till the stage with the boss and poison. Kill the last 4 mobs + the miniboss to proceed. In next room kill the boss only. In last room move to the corner, DM up and wait for the final boss to come to you and invite for a tea party.
Make sure you use the XP runes from lowbie quests, you can use it on 85 and give bonus till you hit 86.
Also, Clan EXP buff should be on always when you do this.

After 86, use the 30 day EXP rune from your Returning Hero pack. It will sit quietly in your inventory and boost your exp.

You can buy Kartia reset scrolls from players or the L2Store. Best investment in terms of exp - 2 rounds daily.

Also as long as you have vitality you can use Maphr scrolls - inside kartia, in last seconds before the boss dies just use it, for 30 sec you get increased exp.
You can buy from Daily Coins or from another players, around 3,5kk each - again really worthy investment.

You can do this till 99. 98-99 will be a bit slower.
Save vit.

I did with this plan 1-97 (almost 98) in 7 days, without playing much, without spending any real cash (except PA). 85-88 1 day, 88-92 next day with kartia resets.


Covered the exp, now comes the gear.
It sux, you will hate it.

You get the Paulina set on 85 and it is awesome.
You should collect enough adena to buy 300 weap - suggesting at least R95 or +6 blessed Apo. 300 is important.
Set is not really important, Paulina will do well till 99.

To be anyhow competitive (not top, not even speaking about real oly) you can follow 2 paths.
Play 2-3 years, with CP, actively and rely on the drops, be lucky with enchants and do not miss special L2 store and normal events.
This is cool but kinda time consuming.

Other way is the power of Visa and MasterCard.
To gear yourself properly (meaning, you will not be 1 hit for strong players [not strongest, just strong], and you can 1 hit weak players) you need approx 350 billions.
80B armor set
50B weapon
100-150B gems, belt, accessories, skill enchant, shirts (pray to the RNG gods)
30-50B epic jewels, not top ones
20B weaker talismans

The EUR - adena conversion based on the market status and L2store prices is around 10.5 EUR / billion.
Now we have an event ongoing for Shadai boxes, in a week they will be removed and price will jump probably.

As a conclusion, you need ~4000 EUR to have a good character ready. Not top one, not hero as any important class. But it will survive, it will kill and randoms will love you in groups.


Also something more. The server is old and it is usually easier to buy items in AH or market than making your own. Like, clean R99 weap + attri cry + SA stone + gems would cost most than buying the weap ready from a player.

That's all folks.

 

Hi,
A small corrections/tips here,
Not sure which gear Hero box contains,but Im quite sure that U can't solo low RB,unless U got decent gear(PA wep) or BR .
To save vit on low lvls U could always ask Ur mentor to help U with questing.(zero vit used)
Exp runes r much more needed on dual/sub classes than main,so try to save few.
Btw don't use Maphr scrolls on Solo Kartias,it wont affect them.
At kartias Group,go.duo with Iss,or plus heal,use Shadow to save vit when mobs spawns and kill ONLY last 5mobs at last wave,then go to nxt room and kill ONLY small rb,go to final room,use shadow again and wait for final boss in one of corners.
In that way u waste minimum vit.

My few tips

 

Find or create CP, that help you and yours mate gear up.

 

I think you're exagerating the gear needed a bit scubba, 350b is much more than needed to have a decent 'not top' char. That is already quite a stacked character belonging to the few best geared people on server.

 

He might have overestimated it a bit but the difference between top and decent geared char isn't that big anyway and once you've pumped 200-250b on your char you can as well walk the extra mile...

 

@St0ne soloing bosses up to 70 without problem.
With Evi I did Rahha (same level) and clan member did Hisilrome with..something melee.

@Padj1l possibly overestimated a bit, but checking AH now.
PvP items (armor) are for 20b each on +8, standard without pvp indeed can be done for ~30.
weapons 20b+, with PvE 27-50.

Gems and stuff.. up to personal preference. CoC belt is going for zillions, stage 5 gems are just a dream.
But indeed those are the top items.
Jewels, top ones each of them cost that amount, so that should be correct.

Not like I want to discourage people, simply as a person and clan leader who recently came back to the server I see this.
Plus on siege getting 80k damage on 99 in heavy full attri and good buffs hurts.
Sayha in my group on 98 160k damage, bad set tho.

 

Depends on what you want but with let's say 2 pvp parts, pvp weap, brooch lvl 4, abundance lvl 1, cheap jewelry , skills +10 and dyes you already have a very strong char for about 150b more or less if you try to always get the best prices? With such gear you can pvp vs everyone on server except maybe 2-3 top pt i think. And if you're not dd its even less expensive.
Damage taken is irrelevant cuz even geared you can get 1shot on some occasions (skills+crit+br etc) but that doesn't mean you get 1shot all the time.

 

First of all, thank you everyone for the quick response! Really appreciate it! You gave me really crucial and important details for the basics of the game that no real guide teaches you ever. Some of those things I remember myself discovering on my own over the time I played my archer. I remember the grind you described up to lvl 85 that I went through. The thing is, I created that thread in case things changed a lot and I missed it, which didn't happen as you told me. I believe I abandoned the game at the point when I bought myself a basic apocalypse bow spending almost all my adena. Then I didn't know how to progress without investing real money and gather more adena etc... My friends that were playing with me back then abandoned the game too. But I still really like the variety and diversity of things you can have fun in L2, and my favorite streamer started streaming before a week again, so the desire to start playing L2 again grew into me... I love that I saw some real guys giving me feedback and tips on how to get back in the game, and I really am considering it now. Didn't believe such good people existed in this community... I would really appreciate if some of you guys could chat with me ingame or with pm in order to ask some more specific questions and get the game started!
Again, thanks a LOT!!

 

@Scubba
Evi isn't ordinary toon even at low lvl.
And I know from experience as well that killing low rb is hard and time consuming,IF u dont have br/equip.
All can be done by time and countles dead/res.

 

I m killing bosses only lowbie char, healer + archer.
Tanatos 2 down.
Hisilrome needs purify only.
Lydia can be soloed.