LAST UPDATED AFTER LVL 45+5 PATCH
Well, I am making this thread to post general stuff about B&S on what to do and what to avoid in general and how you can maximize on game-play and minimize the time searching for it.
If you have played the game before, I am pretty sure this post is totally useless for you. The target audience is people who have not yet played the game even once so that they don't dump useful items by mistake and stuff like that. I hope at least someone finds the stuff mentioned here useful. I will they to keep the post as updated as possible.
Few things first. This thread is NOT for skill builds. You will find better skill builds on other sites. Ask for stuff below which you think can be included in the list and i will update the main post.
GENERAL STUFF
- DON'T throw away the first purple weapon you get in your game via the yellow quest. You shall be using this weapon till the end by upgrading and evolving it continuously. (The beginner white weapon can be discarded)
- If your threw it away, don't worry; the weapon's merchant in the bamboo village sells it for 5 coppers.
- Your clothes are just skins. No stats on them. Your stats come from weapon, accessories and soul shields. They are 8 pieces which form a complete set and each piece gives you stats. If you are interested in the different sets of soul shields, you can check this page:
http://bns.endgame.pk/soul_shields/ (The list is quite detailed which will help you maximize your stats)
BTW, if u have no costume on, your soul shield stats wont be applied to your character. So, don't roam around naked.
- Soul shields can be fused for extra stats. dont bother wasting time over it at low levels. Consider targeting that once you are nearing end levels.
- Even though your costume give no bonuses, they serve a special purpose. There are two types of costumes, one is purely for looks while the second one is to represent factions. Each faction costume has a counter faction costume. So, if costume A and costume B are counterparts of each other, then 2 people wearing A and B will be able to pvp with each other. There are also faction related npcs. So, if you decide to wear that faction's opponent costume , those npcs will be hostile to you. Note that in order to acquire some stuff, you may need to farm those very same npcs. Some of the quests can be picked up and completed only by wearing the required faction costume. If you remove the faction costume midway, the quest will be automatically disabled and will be resumed only when u re-equip that costume.
- There are multiple A x B types of factions and most of the factions costumes are acquirable with quests, etc. Only the blue (cerulean) and red (crimson) faction has the limit where you can wear only one of the costumes at a time depending on your current choice of the faction.
- You might have figured out from the previous point already that when you do the faction quests, you can expect pvp. Be on a lookout for "red" players. People may or may not be understanding. Call up on your guildies and friends to take care of people who are not so understanding or just hop to other channels.
- First few minutes into the game, it teaches you that when your hp touches zero, you enter a "crawling mode" in which you can still recover if your opponent doesn't finish you off. Do not ignore stuff while doing overworld pvp since a recovered person may change the battle tide easily in smaller battles.
- Weapon enchants are done by combining other weapons into it. They don't fail. Using better quality of weapons gives you higher enchants. At lvl 5 enchant, weapon will be enchant capped. You need a specific weapon (mentioned in description of that weapon) to "break through" further till lvl 10. Weapon evolutions are similar. Evolutions allow you to upgrade your current lvl 10 weapon into a higher version which will start at lvl 0. Accessory enchants/upgrades/evolutions work in exact same way as weapon. You will eventually get hongmoon ring, necklace and earring. Keep upgrading them since it will be used even at end game. First purple belt (siren belt) can be acquired in the lvl 45 poharan dungeon. First purple bracelet can be acquired in lvl 45 blackshade harbour dungeon.
- If you find that farming a specific item is hard, just skip and return after a couple of lvls or join up with others. At the end, that's why our guild exists. The first relatively hard boss you will encounter will be at lvl 15 with the insect and the scorpion bosses. They can be solo'd by some classes but if it's taking too much time, it's better to just return at lvl 17+ since you open up skill upgrades at that point. Also, blue weapons and accessories can easily bought over the marketplace cheaply which can help u bypass a particularly annoying dungeon grind.
- There are world bosses which drop "gems" called essence. You can use these gems/essence at wheels of fate. Each type of gem has specific places to roll those lotteries (The places are within 30 secs of the boss, so don't worry). They usually give break through or upgrade weapons/soul shield sets/costumes. First one is near the cemetery place (dark kinda area) which you encounter fairly early in the game (around lvl 5-6). MAKE SURE to get your blue weapon in order to break through the purple weapon you own. You can burn a few more keys into extra weapon boxes(if you haven't already while trying to get your blue weapon) and use them to max out your weapon to lvl 10. One of the ingredients (a poison bottle) needed to breakthrough is available through the yellow quest at that point. Recommended to get the complete soul shield set. Costume is sexy at the first point too. If you wish to earn some early coin, you can farm those gems and sell at marketplace. (I never really needed to do that since you don't really spend much money at lower levels)
More info+list of wheel of fate:
http://www.bladeandsoulzone.com/what-is-the-wheel-of-fate/List of world bosses:
http://www.bladeandsoulzone.com/all-world-bosses/- I found money sparingly in my runs. So think twice before you spend in your early lvls since you might really wanna buy something from broker in order to upgrade your weapon further when u are capped due to certain missing requirements. Basically, each copper counts. (Well, you should have much more money at end game but this point is here so that you don't mess up during early levels). Also, the game allows you to finish a few quests from any location while charging a certain small amount of money. The amount may seem small but keep doing this and you will soon burn through your wallet.
- No heal class as you might have already figured out. It is perfectly possible to avoid all damage in pve if you are smart enough with your movements and skills and each class has its own healing mechanisms. You can play around with those. Moreover, heal pots are abundant.
- ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS know what items any npc sells and at what price. People make money by selling npc items on broker. Don't get scammed by such stupid tricks (This point is valid across all mmos. Even today i can make profit in aion using this method..)
INSTANCES/DUNGEONS
- Instances/Dungeons CAN be entered solo. You don't need a group compulsorily as was the case with Aion. The entrance mark shows number of recommended players and what difficulty to expect inside. But once you are high enough lvl, it becomes pointless for the lower dugneons. You can use this to earn money later on by farming low lvl stuff and selling at marketplace.
- High level dungeons have 2 modes: 6-man and 4-man. 6man is easier version and the final boss' AoE has markers around it it making it easier to dodge around. 4man is the harder version where those hints are not present and your have to check on boss movements to avoid the AoEs. Once you get used to 6man, you can follow up on 4man easily. At the moment, blackram supply chain, blackshade harbor and naryu labyrinth offer 4man option.
- Loot rolling works differently in B&S and one that I extremely like. When a good item drops, you can input a price in the box to bid on it. Once you do that, other members can bid for a higher amount. When the bidding finally stops, the highest bidder gets the item and the amount he bid is distributed evenly among other members. For example, If a person bids highest amount as 5gold and gets the item, he will lose 5g and each other person will get 1g (assuming its a 6man group)
- And then there are people who will abuse the system. Some people try to bait others in bidding. I will try to explain how. When a costly item drops, most people keep hitting the bid button coz the next minimum value to bid is already filed into the bid box. So, if a few people are smashing their keyboards, one person might suddenly make that 1g bid into 10g and the next smasher ends up paying the 10x price. So, yeah..don't be that smasher and make sure you check the price before u bid.
There's one way to prevent it and one way to get out of the bid if you fall into the trap. In order to prevent it, always input the price manually (especially if you are suspicious of a person' a person who may have afk'd the whole run and came back at the end or others with shady behavior). Manual input prevents auto-update of price and its the safest way.
The other option, in case you fall into the trap, is to leave the party immediately. By doing this, you will lose the right to bid and lose out on the bid money (which will be paid by someone else since that item goes for a re-bid) but it saves your gold especially when its a significant amount as compared to the item itself.
- Due to this bidding mechanism, it's better to keep gold on your char before you enter instances so that you don't miss out on bids if you really need something (but at the same time be careful not to fall for baits). Also, if you are unsure of the price of the bid item and you are in cross server where marketplace is blocked, just ask some friend or in the guild chat for a quick price check.
- As a personal tip, if you are lazy at maths, in a 6man group, if a bid crosses 83.33% (or 5/6) of market price of that item, stop bidding. 75% (or 3/4) for a 4man. I use these values as a personal preference to maximize my profit to effort value. You are free to use 100% market price as your own bidding barrier.
BOSSES
- Bosses in B&S CAN be stunned, knocked down, etc. It works a bit differently. If someone uses a stun on boss, it is notified to all the players attacking it that the boss can now be stunned on use of another stun skill. There's an in-game mini tutorial in the form of a purple quest to familiarize you with this so don't worry.
- Tutorial reminds me..there are a list of in-game mini tutorials (purple quests) which teach you basic combos. Its better to check them out.
- World bosses have individual drops for all who hit but the amount of dps still counts. In order to be eligible for the loot, you should do at least 1% dmg to the boss of its total HP. And more dps = better loot.
The 1% hp can be significant for bosses like blackwyrm (lvl 45 content) who has a total of around 68m hp. So doing just a couple of hits wont be enough to break the 1% barrier.
If you die, your dmg counter is reset but the manner of dying+re-spawning matters afaik. I am unsure of the exact criterias and do not wish to make random guesses. I will update this part once I find concrete proof.
For now, that's enough. I will add more when I remember.
Subject: Beginner's Tips and Tricks 
06/08/15, 01:33 pm
