I haven't really seen any guides for this in the past, so I thought I would write something out that has helped me get started from 0-1m gold in my first week on a new server (with zero help).
First off, make an elvish fighter character who uses Melee weapons (unless you want to make a fletcher... arrows can be expensive). For the sake of argument, let's say a Swordsman. You will want to run as many escort quests as you can while in New Haven until you start fighting. This will help with buying skills (400g per skill to 40)
Run through the following quests to get the basic needs: Swordsmanship, Tactics, Parrying, Focus, Bushido, Chivalry, Anatomy, Healing. You will also want to have at least 100 bandages on you to start.
Head over to Old Haven and start killing zombies with your increased gains. Hold off on using Chivalry at first (as it costs money to use) and focus more on Bushido, I usually won't even learn Chivalry until I have a few thousand gold to tithe. Every time you kill a zombie, loot everything but the body parts and bone armor, since everything else should sell.
When you become overweight with items (remember to swap out your mundane gear for found gear) head back to New Haven and sell everything. You will want to buy armor, I highly suggest focusing on Physical Damage right now since everything that hits you in this guide is going to do it using this type.
Deposit your gold, turn in any quests you have completed, buy more bandages, tithe some gold, start on Chivalry. You are going to hang out here until your Swordsmanship and Tactics are at least up to 55 (your other skills should pass this quickly except for Bushido and Chivalry).
When you have 55 skill, you are going to want to head to Trammel's Yew Crypts and fight Skeletons. Stay at the south end of the first room and kill them as they spawn, which should be VERY fast. When you are confident that you can handle them, move to the door and stand in the middle. Remember to loot the corpses and ignore the Bone Armor.
Stay here and keep doing this. I went into the crypts with about 1000 bandages and would loot only the gold, on average I would make about 25-50 gold per skeleton and could kill somewhere around 8 skeletons a minute. While 25-50 gold isn't all that much, when you hang out there for an hour, it adds up (12,000 - 24,000 per hour). You can stay here as long as you like, but your gains should stop somewhere around 75% in swords and around 80% in tactics, and those last 5% of each of those will be VERY slow. I stayed here for about four hours and had to hit the bank twice. I made around 50k in those four hours.
Next, you should move on to Ettins. The best place to fight them at this level is in Despise in Feluccia. On high population shards you may see others while hunting here, but on the low pop shards I have never seen anyone here but myself. The Ettins should spawn fairly quickly and drop 175-225g each as well as special gear. The gear can be skipped, though, since it weighs more than it is worth now. Stay here until your skill is around 85/90% in Swords/Tactics. It took me another four hours to reach this level and I made around 200k while doing it and had to return to the bank six times to drop off my gold.
At this point, I went ahead and paid for some full physical resist studded leather armor with LMC, HCI, DI, and DCI. It was now time to move on to the Earth Elementals, but I wanted ones that weren't TOO hard and that spawned quickly. Welcome to the New Haven Mines!
These Earth Elementals don't give any more gold than the Ettin do, but they do give one special thing, which is jewels. The jewels add to the value of the Earth Elemental by roughly 25-100g per kill, but you may have to make a few extra trips to the bank. The Earth Elementals spawn very quickly and a fighter can clean up very well here (so can a young Mage with E-Bolt btw). They will also train you up to 100% in both Swords and Tactics... but this will likely take a long time.
You can get from 0-100% in both Swords and Tactics with this method and will earn more than 1m gold AFTER you have bought your suit (which should run you in the 300-400k range) in roughly five to ten days if you play four hours per day (roughly 20 -40 hours). The use of Scrolls of Alacrity while fighting the Skeletons and Ettin will drasticly reduce the time you have to spend with them (but will also reduce the gold you get), but they can cost anywhere from 200-500k each(!), which if you're starting from zero may not be the best use of your money.
Some Things To Remember:
First off, make an elvish fighter character who uses Melee weapons (unless you want to make a fletcher... arrows can be expensive). For the sake of argument, let's say a Swordsman. You will want to run as many escort quests as you can while in New Haven until you start fighting. This will help with buying skills (400g per skill to 40)
Run through the following quests to get the basic needs: Swordsmanship, Tactics, Parrying, Focus, Bushido, Chivalry, Anatomy, Healing. You will also want to have at least 100 bandages on you to start.
Head over to Old Haven and start killing zombies with your increased gains. Hold off on using Chivalry at first (as it costs money to use) and focus more on Bushido, I usually won't even learn Chivalry until I have a few thousand gold to tithe. Every time you kill a zombie, loot everything but the body parts and bone armor, since everything else should sell.
When you become overweight with items (remember to swap out your mundane gear for found gear) head back to New Haven and sell everything. You will want to buy armor, I highly suggest focusing on Physical Damage right now since everything that hits you in this guide is going to do it using this type.
Deposit your gold, turn in any quests you have completed, buy more bandages, tithe some gold, start on Chivalry. You are going to hang out here until your Swordsmanship and Tactics are at least up to 55 (your other skills should pass this quickly except for Bushido and Chivalry).
When you have 55 skill, you are going to want to head to Trammel's Yew Crypts and fight Skeletons. Stay at the south end of the first room and kill them as they spawn, which should be VERY fast. When you are confident that you can handle them, move to the door and stand in the middle. Remember to loot the corpses and ignore the Bone Armor.
Stay here and keep doing this. I went into the crypts with about 1000 bandages and would loot only the gold, on average I would make about 25-50 gold per skeleton and could kill somewhere around 8 skeletons a minute. While 25-50 gold isn't all that much, when you hang out there for an hour, it adds up (12,000 - 24,000 per hour). You can stay here as long as you like, but your gains should stop somewhere around 75% in swords and around 80% in tactics, and those last 5% of each of those will be VERY slow. I stayed here for about four hours and had to hit the bank twice. I made around 50k in those four hours.
Next, you should move on to Ettins. The best place to fight them at this level is in Despise in Feluccia. On high population shards you may see others while hunting here, but on the low pop shards I have never seen anyone here but myself. The Ettins should spawn fairly quickly and drop 175-225g each as well as special gear. The gear can be skipped, though, since it weighs more than it is worth now. Stay here until your skill is around 85/90% in Swords/Tactics. It took me another four hours to reach this level and I made around 200k while doing it and had to return to the bank six times to drop off my gold.
At this point, I went ahead and paid for some full physical resist studded leather armor with LMC, HCI, DI, and DCI. It was now time to move on to the Earth Elementals, but I wanted ones that weren't TOO hard and that spawned quickly. Welcome to the New Haven Mines!
These Earth Elementals don't give any more gold than the Ettin do, but they do give one special thing, which is jewels. The jewels add to the value of the Earth Elemental by roughly 25-100g per kill, but you may have to make a few extra trips to the bank. The Earth Elementals spawn very quickly and a fighter can clean up very well here (so can a young Mage with E-Bolt btw). They will also train you up to 100% in both Swords and Tactics... but this will likely take a long time.
You can get from 0-100% in both Swords and Tactics with this method and will earn more than 1m gold AFTER you have bought your suit (which should run you in the 300-400k range) in roughly five to ten days if you play four hours per day (roughly 20 -40 hours). The use of Scrolls of Alacrity while fighting the Skeletons and Ettin will drasticly reduce the time you have to spend with them (but will also reduce the gold you get), but they can cost anywhere from 200-500k each(!), which if you're starting from zero may not be the best use of your money.
Some Things To Remember:
- Felucca is dangerous, but has many great hunting grounds that are usually free of traffic (because it's dangerous).
- Remember to keep an eye on your gear's durability! Broken gear won't give you any benefits, so when you hit the town to trade in your gold you will want to make sure nothing needs to be replaced.
- The build I started you on can make you into a Sampire. All you need is 99/100 in Necromancy and you're ready to go! You will need to drop skills as well, there are other articles to read about Sampire Builds.
- Insure your Gear! If you're fighting somewhere and you die (it will happen) and you can't get to your gear, you've just wasted time because now you need to get more gear and everything you've gained (except for skill) is likely to be lost. If you in sure your gear, though, you can fight your way back and keep going.
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