New or Returning Players Discussion 2: SoA Homeless Veterans Edition

[Ksandra]

Hubby and I resubbed and made new characters. I wanted to come back to see how they finish up the stories, so we wanted to start fresh and go through the stories again. (no, just watching the cs are not going to feel the same). We looked up some newb guides so have a general idea how leveling has changed (ie. trust npcs), but does anyone have any input/advice that is usually not found in the guides? If it matters, he's going to lvl bst and I am going to do smn.

[Voyage1970]

For BST once you hit 23 try to find CourierCarrie jugs either from the AH or get someone to craft them for you or craft them yourself since the cooking skill required is pretty low and you can get up to 60 in any craft by buying the special crafting kits from the respective guilds. Carrie will follow you all the way up to 75 or more if you get lucky with relic or take time out to merit Beast Affinity and Big Scissor does ridiculous damage for leveling practically one-shotting most Tough mobs and two-shotting some ITs if you get lucky with crits.

Do Rhapsody mission in parallel with story missions so you unlock Escha-Zi'tah around 50 and you get the Rhapsody Key Items for exp boosts and numerous other benefits. Escha-Zi'tah in particular has a wide range of mob levels to the point you could practically level from 50 to 80 in that zone alone. The Rhapsody storyline will also provide you a free teleport to Norg and once you get the Homepoint crystal there it saves you from having to do the Kazham Airship pass quest.

And it probably is mentioned but cannot stress enough to be on the lookout for Survival Guides/Home Points out in the wild. They show up on your map and make getting around much easier. Most Home Points are in dungeons by the arena entrances and survival guides are typically at regional Outposts.

[Ksandra]

For BST once you hit 23 try to find CourierCarrie jugs either from the AH or get someone to craft them for you or craft them yourself since the cooking skill required is pretty low and you can get up to 60 in any craft by buying the special crafting kits from the respective guilds. Carrie will follow you all the way up to 75 or more if you get lucky with relic or take time out to merit Beast Affinity and Big Scissor does ridiculous damage for leveling practically one-shotting most Tough mobs and two-shotting some ITs if you get lucky with crits.

Do Rhapsody mission in parallel with story missions so you unlock Escha-Zi'tah around 50 and you get the Rhapsody Key Items for exp boosts and numerous other benefits. Escha-Zi'tah in particular has a wide range of mob levels to the point you could practically level from 50 to 80 in that zone alone. The Rhapsody storyline will also provide you a free teleport to Norg and once you get the Homepoint crystal there it saves you from having to do the Kazham Airship pass quest.

And it probably is mentioned but cannot stress enough to be on the lookout for Survival Guides/Home Points out in the wild. They show up on your map and make getting around much easier. Most Home Points are in dungeons by the arena entrances and survival guides are typically at regional Outposts.

ooooh good info.

Without getting into spoilers if possible, do the rhapsody missions kinda pair up with the story missions at all? I honestly have a shit memory, and the only thing I remember from the main story was DL. I don't even remember wtf Wings of the Goddess n' shit were all about. So, this is going to be a lot like I never did them before.

[Voyage1970]

Certain main story missions are actually required for Rhapsody missions so you'll be doing both either way. Focus on Rhapsody missions as a priority for the key item bonuses and once you get to a point where you need progression in another expansion the game will tell you which missions you need to complete. If you want to get the full story go ahead and complete the entire expansion otherwise the Rhapsody missions will give a brief synopsis and also unlock all relevant cutscenes for viewing at a goblin footprint even if you haven't gotten them yet.

Example: Mission 20 in Rhapsody requires Zilart Mission 4 completed at least. You can either use that time to finish the entire Zilart expansion for first hand experience or do Mission 4 and get a general idea of what happened from NPCs in Rhapsody talking about it and you can view the cutscenes at your leisure later.

[Shenrien]

The second half of RoV requires you to basically complete all of WotG so you might as well get that done and out of the way to continue that.

[Ksandra]

Ok, thanks!

[dasva]

No, that's 10. If you're at 109, then 99 is 10 levels below you, so you can skill up on it.

They said 10 and it works the way they worded (iirc they said you can skillup 10 lvls above the cap) but it is raising the cap by 11. Think of it this way if you can skillup at 0 lvls above the cap you've still gained 1 more lvl to skillup then if you could only go to the cap

[Mojo]

Is there a list of bonuses that increase capacity point yields? There are many records of eminence quests and such but you are unable to view them until you get to the end of the quest lines.

[Lolwutt]

10% for each mission line(bastok/windurst/sandy/zilart/cop/toau/wotg/adoulin), 1% for each lair reive objective, 2% for each colo reive objective, 3% for each wildskeeper reive objective is it for RoE i believe

[dasva]

On top of RoE there is mog enchancement bounty from the vana clock, various mementos from monster rearing, various enchantment rings, trust: kupofried and corsair's roll. I think that is it. Oh and gifts

[The Assman]

And the mantle from Incursion or crafted version.

[Scythiroth]

The second half of RoV requires you to basically complete all of WotG so you might as well get that done and out of the way to continue that.

This is actually not true. Was leveling an alt account recently and was able to finish it at WotG mission #8. Think the guide on BG-wiki has all the earliest points you can finish RoV. Just have to make sure to not go beyond certain missions or you have to get way farther sometimes.

[dasva]

Yeah if you accidentally go to far on some stuff you end up getting locked out until completing a bunch more

[Chumm]

Hubby and I resubbed and made new characters. I wanted to come back to see how they finish up the stories, so we wanted to start fresh and go through the stories again. (no, just watching the cs are not going to feel the same). We looked up some newb guides so have a general idea how leveling has changed (ie. trust npcs), but does anyone have any input/advice that is usually not found in the guides? If it matters, he's going to lvl bst and I am going to do smn.

Records of eminence are new quests that you can accept anywhere in the field, they'll reward you with sparks, a currency that can buy gear and skill books. Because most low level gear can be purchased with sparks, there isn't much of a market for it on the AH, so make sure to do as many records of 3 mine ce quests as possible. Spend your leftover points on summoning skill books because it will always be painfully underleveled with the new xp leveling speed.

[Mojo]

Has there been good testing on the crafting HQ rate +x% stuff (like the ring or food)?

[dasva]

Has there been good testing on the crafting HQ rate +x% stuff (like the ring or food)?

iirc there was some testing that made it look like rings were multiplicative as expected. I did some limited testing awhile back on food I recently posted. Think I had some data for kitrons too but iirc it only really showed a huge increase in success not really better hqs when you did succeed

[Mojo]

Alright. Thanks for the info.

There have been a lot of things that increase crafting skill up rates and such. I have completed RoV now, is there anything else I should look out for before I start skilling up crafting?

Thanks again

[dasva]

shapers shawl, kitrons, and there are mementos which increase skillup rate. Also you just missed a double skillup period lol

[Lolwutt]

Shawl costs more than the difference it would make leveling every craft 0-70 and one to 110, gilwise. Time may vary, if you're farming it yourself it probably costs more time too.

Depending on your priorities, it's likely not worth pursuing.

[Mojo]

Yeah, I pretty much nope'd outta that one when I read up on how to obtain it. The rest of the information is good. Also, Ionis gives skill up improvements too. How often do double skill up campaigns occur?