Any guide (quick overview) for returning players?

Hello everyone,

I started here on friday. I'm a long time L2-player (8 years) but was mostly only playing chronicles up to High5. So I basically missed everything that happened after that chronicle and sooo much changed and I'm really overwhelmed ingame at the moment. I'm currently playing a lvl 78 Eva's Saint and am basically looking for information about what to do now, what is the best way to level up, how do I gain adena the best way, which gear to get as a healer, which attributes to use, which dyes do I need, where do I get those new dyes, etc. etc. I basically need everything there is to know in an overview guide. Does something like this exist? I don't know anything about instances, dungeons, raids (what the hell are baium/aq "soul" rings?? I just know the normal ones), how do I get to Zaken, how often can you do him, etc. etc. Hell, I don't even know the order of armor/weapon sets at the moment. Which armor/weapons are the best atm? R99? What are their names? What is the best armor set for my class and how do I get those armors/weapons? Craft? Raid? Fulldrop? Where do I get the materials?

These are obviously not all my questions. I have soooo many of them flying around in my head.
So please, just tell me everything that comes to your mind. EVERYTHING. Even small things you think everyone knows already, because I probably don't LOL.

I'm a real newb.

 

Welcome here. Well, if you last played H5, you're basically playing a new game (not at 78, but you'll soon see).

About guides requested, a fast search in the "experimentarium and guides" would have been useful :
Money : https://4gameforum.com/threads/25402/
leveling : https://4gameforum.com/threads/23976/

About Money, for a newcomer, I think that making few zaken toons would be the most efficient choice, because the level of your main and the time now needed to make 1-85 when you're used to it.

Small tips for leveling (but read Elesmira post, will help greatly) :
-NEVER do the awakening quest if you don't have a mentor (doesn't matter if he's online or not).
-Do the Kekropus letter quest, as they give stuff, adenas and xp (everything is written down in the guide).

Your stuff :
Healer is in robe. Your R grade stuff will be given to you once you awaken, meaning that you actually don't have to spend a single adenas on weapon/armor before lvl 95~. I advice you to read the "healer" section on the forum, as a lot of people (including myself) posted useful information about weapon/armor/accessories/gameplay on it.

Stuff name/levels :
-Immortal (armor) / Requiem (weapon) : R-grade, meaning 85+ (low tier)
-Twilight (armor) / Apocalypse (weapon) : R-grade, meaning 85+ (high tier)
-Seraph (armor) / Specter (weapon) : R95-grade, meaning 95+
-Eternal (armor) / Amaranthine (weapon) : R99-grade, meaning 99+

4(5) kind of armor :
-Bound (bound to char, lower base pdef than normal armor, normal bonus from enchant)
-Normal (normal, normal bonus from enchant)
-Blessed (higher base pdef than normal armor, +50% bonus from enchant (i.e instead of +20 pdef by enchant, you'll have +30)
-PvE (higher base pdef than blessed armor (same than PvP), +50% bonus from enchant, +1% patk & +2% matk per armor part, damage reduction from PvE damage received (-20% if whole set)
-PvP (higher base pdef than blessed armor (same than PvE), +50% bonus from enchant, damage reduction from PvP damage received (-20% if whole set)

Don't bother right now with the information above, you won't have your PvE/PvP set for quite a long time unless you spend tons of € in game.

"New" jewels :
The old jewels were "upgraded", because having a AQ ring is nice, but its 48 mdef is nothing compared to the 100+ mdef of new ones. So the decided to make the old bosses (Frintezza/AQ/Baium/Valakas/Antharas/Freya/Orfen) to drop "bottle of soul", allowing you to make the trade "Old jewel + bottle of soul = New jewel" (the new jewel can be spotted by having either "blessed" or "soul" in its name (the "blessed" zaken is dropped directly on the 83 level, there is no bottle for this boss).

To get the armor, best chance is to get the money from zaken toons for example then to buy it from AH (lots of people sell "normal" R99 stuff with elements and safe enchanted for a "low" price.

This should gets you started, but doesn't cover half of what you should know (once again, read the 2 guides I linked, and the healer section to see what's going on).

 

Thank you alot for that already!

But I'm currently struggling on how I am supposed to get to 85 solo efficiently. Everyone (including that leveling guide you mentioned above) is telling me to go to DV. But I have been in DV and I find it pretty slow to be honest. I don't like this place at all. Is there nothing else I can do? Are there any good raids for me to do in a group? Can I do some kind of solo dungeons/instances daily? Can I do Kamaloka or whatever it's called in a group or solo? Is it worth it? Daily quests are not that great either, yesterday I got a quest which told me to go to Silent Valley and get 50 items, but that one was ******** since every mob there has very strong m.def!!

Yes I did the Kekropus letter quests so far, and it went pretty well, but well, they just appear once every 5 levels and do not give that much exp now as in the beginning. I still have to level up a lot without quests, just by grinding.

How do I get those Immortal, Twilight, Seraph and Eternal armor sets? When I played Lineage, you had to farm materials, parts and recipes and craft everything or you got a fulldrop from a raid. But how is it working now?
And how come mobs do not drop any materials anymore? What did happen to materials like stem, iron ore, varnish, steel, etc.? Are they still in the game? Do you still need them?

Can you upgrade your gear when you have, let's say, a normal armor and you want to make it blessed or pve. Does it work? Are there items for upgrading, or can you trade it in somewhere/somehow? Or do you have to buy/farm the newer/higher sets again?

So the old jewels do not exist in this game anymore? When you kill Baium it instantly drops Baium's Soul Ring and the bottle of soul is only for people who still own the old ring?

What do you mean with money from zaken and toons? Do I create a lot of chars (what lvl do they need to be?) and box them all and enter Zaken alone? Can I even kill him alone with my healer?

 

-Level up in Ketra. Slower than in DV (not sure, as they give low amount of xp, but they die faster), but safe. Kamaloka, imo, aren't worth the time (drops nerfed, etc etc). Be sure to have a mentor, as having a mentor (online) gives a 50% xp boost. If possible, premium account gives a *2 xp rate.

-To get stuff, you've few ways to make it : Kill instances/open field RB and drop Armor Crafting Pack (it contains everything needed to craft the item, but with the 60% success rate - another nerf from dropping full items) and craft them (dwarf), buy them from other players, or craft them from scratch by grinding pieces/parts/ingredients (as far as I know, nobody choose this last option).

-The old mats (Iron Ore, VoP, ...) were replaced by some news mats, which have a "level". Meaning that X amount of a lvl 1 mat can be changed into a lvl 2 one. But it was a bad attempt to bring back spoil/craft and failed miserably.

-You can upgrade your armor/weapon from bound to normal, from normal to blessed, from normal to PvE/PvP and from Blessed to PvE/PvP. There are items allowing you to upgrade them (with often a low change of success in case of making your stuff blessed).

-The old jewels still drops. Antharas still drops its normal earring. You then have to bring the normal one plus ten (in case of dragons, otherwise 1 bottle is enough) to rafforty (ice merchant cabin iirc) to make it blessed. The blessed jewel directly drops only from Freya (and zaken), and because the blessed freya existed before goddess. Otherwise you cannot directly drops Soul/Blessed Epics.

-You create a ****ton of toons lvl 85 (as Zaken is 83, it's extremely important to be the closest possible to its level, but non awakened (85-) toons will do no damage), and you do Zaken as much as possible (done with 1 party, check the partymatching to enter a party for Zaken). You'll drop some S80 armor/accessories, that the NPC will gladly pay you for. Remember to sell your items in a town without castle taxes, otherwise you'll get scammed by 30%. Pref toons are High-DPS or buffer to take Zaken down fast (Best classes : Iss (buffer - PP/WC/OL/SS/BD), Eviscerator (Ertheia - New race fighter), Wynn (Summoners))