[X] My Assistant

I'm doing my IW with a 2H weapon with 25% bleeding wound over 3 turns, and it really helps a lot. I can bash a group of enemies at once, leave them procked for three turns and in the meantime go attack another guy or group. I take about 15 to 25 turns to beat nine enemies, which is great because the shield lasts me 18 turns and when it's gone I usually have at most three guys left to beat.

Shield by the way is pretty much necessary to get past hordes and hordes of even growing enemies. Sometimes I forget about casting shield at the beginning of an enemy-infested level and in exchange I have to cast cure three times, which uses up a lot more MP.

The armor I'm wearing is about half heavy, half leather. The burden is a little bit on the high side, but nothing really troublesome.

I recently tried switching back to 1H+S, but I got easily bored. True, I may get a little further away in a grindfest, but I fear I won't be able to get as far off in IW because it takes much longer to beat a level. My shield is pretty decent with a 25% block, but my strategy depends on me spamming lots of BW quickly, and the best way to do it is with a 2H weapon.

What i don't know is if it's best to focus on gaining xp for now, and if it is, when to stop, because i'm being rapped on normal arena 8+.

It depends. I know for some time I was behind in the Arenas, and it was only recently that I managed to beat one at the minimum level (Apocalypse Soon at lvl 70). Gaining experience always gets you closer to more/new abilities, which, to my knowledge, you never really stop needing. At the very least, you can always use more HP and MP tanks. There may come a point where you want to focus less on experience gain and more on raising proficiency, and that just requires some dedication.

But for Arena purposes, I would suggest three areas that helped me:
1) END. Get this up, by a lot. Currently I keep mine 2 points above my level, at least.
2) Equipment. Get the best stuff that you can afford to without stat scaling pulverizing you, it makes a difference.
3) Item Slots. They are expensive, but worth the trouble. If you don't want to buy them, then the only other way to get them is leveling.

I should also mention Auras, finally getting two up to Rank 2 (which, again, you can only do through leveling) gave me a noticeable bump in power.

To one who are getting bored with numpadspam melee builds: try being a Mage. Between beefing oneself up, blasting the whole hordes of mobs and managing your mana, it is never boring!

Sure enough, low-level mages are pretty limited in their main department -- spells, and MP as well, and good magic-friendly equipment is pretty expensive, and wearing paper does not help your health, but still, being Mage IS fun!

This post has been edited by hen_Z: Dec 5 2009, 10:18

Deleted.

This post has been edited by coredumperror: Dec 5 2009, 13:34

Thanks

I learned alot in this forum. I just started playing and im trying work figure everything out. made alot of mistakes. :-(

one thing i dont get is that, i have scavenger level 5 and im still not getting many item drops.

and monsters seem to hit me so much harder when i level up once. it probably my fault for leveling up so quickly. i have every point in more exp abilities that i could get and 30 in adept learner.

This post has been edited by jl2299: Jul 15 2010, 20:51

You obviously didn't learn that reviving threads that have been dead for 8 months is annoying as hell. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

It's hard out there for a mage. Having quite a few troubles meself as a relative noob.

You obviously didn't learn that reviving threads that should been closed is annoying as hell. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Really thankful for this thread! A lot of good information! Thanks a lot guys!