Tips for New Players

Ortwig

Hey all, seeing as we have a bunch of new players coming on board, thought I would lay down a few things that are really good to know at the outset, and that the tutorial could do a better job of making clear.  Feel free to add more tips (there's a lot on the official forums as well, but repeating here to make it easier):

1. Be sure to take 2 weapons.  You can pick up one weapon as part of the tutorial, but it's not really made clear that you should take a 2nd one as soon as possible; the 2nd weapon helps you build resources much more quickly and will always give you a stronger build.  You can go back into the HQ right away and get the 2nd weapon there, or you can do the mission Moose gives you in Kingsmouth to craft a 2nd weapon.
2. When picking weapons, open up the Skill panel (K).  Mouseover the weapon title and the tip will tell you what role the weapon typically plays (survivability, support or damage).  You can make good decks with all weapons, so don't worry too much and just have fun!
3. Be sure to check out the panels next to the Ability wheel -- there are 2 especially you should pay attention to: the Deck panel to the left, and the Search panel to the right.
4. The Decks panel shows some sample pre-made builds, but these decks are NOT the best builds in the game.  The best decks are the custom ones you create on your own (more on that later).  The decks are nice for the outfits though, when you complete them, and give you an idea of how to assemble a deck.
5. The Search panel is a great way to find ability synergies/combos.
6. "What is a combo" you ask?  Okay, if there is one thing that you should know about combat in TSW, it's combos/synergy; everything is built around them.  Here's the important thing:  you want to buy and equip abilities that exploit the Conditions your active abilities trigger.  So here's an example: say you are using a weapon ability that triggers the Hindered Condition.  You will want to find and equip more abilities that exploit Hindered.  Understanding this one rule of thumb will help you make infinitely more effective decks.
7. Remember that Search panel?  That's a great way to find other abilities that use a particular Condition.  So type in Hindered, and find all the other abilities that trigger or exploit Hindered.
8. Another super important note: Passive abilities can be from any weapon, not just your equipped ones.  So when you are searching, don't worry if a passive is from some other branch of the ability wheel
9. It's best to focus on your first 2 weapons initially and find those combos, but know that eventually you will unlock every single weapon, skill and ability in the game.  Later in the game, you'll be creating more decks and be able to swap them in and out using the Gear Manager.  Sometimes you'll need a different deck for a particular mob, or you may want to switch from a dps to a tank role.  Pretty much up to you, and you can create tons of decks.  Each deck, should use the synergy rule of thumb though.
10. There is no need to respec or re-roll.  Remember that you can unlock everything, so re-rolling only puts you back at ground zero.  "Respeccing" is merely a matter of tweaking your deck to better exploit Conditions.  Typically it's a matter of buying a few more abilities on the wheel then equipping them to make yourself more effective.  It's a course correction, not a major operation.

That's the tips most often missed, but there are lots more little things that will help.  For more detail and help, check out these threads:

 

The Basics

Things I Wish I'd Known...

How do I Respec?  Should I Re-Roll?

 

Also, be sure to check out the global Sanctuary channel for in-game help.  Type:

/chat join sanctuary

Po_gg

Originally posted by Ortwig

You can go back into the HQ right away and get the 2nd weapon there, or you can do the mission Moose gives you in Kingsmouth to craft a 2nd weapon.

To the first point, if you follow the storyline and after the tutorial travel to Kingsmouth, the very first mission you receive (from Boone, to get into Kingsmouth) will reward you a weapon, you can pick from all 9. I used to pick the second weapon there.

(I mean before we had a /claim for the blue starter weapons )

You can also craft a weapon at Moose as Ortwig wrote (it's a tutorial mission for crafting). Don't choose the chaos one, there's an another tutorial mission at Mme Roget and there you will craft an upgraded chaos focus (it's a tutorial for glyphs).

 

edit: There was a nice tip I got back then at the lauch: you can barter the tokens you get for mission completion for nice blue weapons and gear. Don't spend them in Kingsmouth, the same tokens are good for the whole New England area. It's better to spend those on QL6 blue weapons in the Blue Mountain, and QL5 blue gear in Savage Coast.

Po_gg

Tips for pre-new players a.k.a some help with the buddy keys.

Since the gametime from 30-days keys will soon expires, I thought it'd be useful to drop in some infos about this whole trial-thingy, both the 3-days and the 30-days. (the topic itself was brought up by a buddy with a key expiring on this weekend)

So, both keys are giving unlimited access to the game, within their time limit (3 for regular buddy key or 30 days for the christmas key). After the key expires, the account will be closed from access, but stays active. Which means, on one hand you can't use an another buddy key with that account anymore, but on the other hand it's a good thing, since if you decide you buy the game later, your characters and the unlocks will be there, FC is not deleting anything. (I've heard about an account which was created with the very first, 1-day trial key, then was reactivated for mule purposes more than a year later, and both characters were there, unharmed.)

Why is this important? Well, mainly because of the bonus points. There are two boons coming with the buddy keys:

1) after the first successful Polaris run (the first dungeon of the game) the player gets the Whispering Demon ring. It's a QL.2 green dps ring (major talisman) with an included xp boost, a nice thing to have equipped while playing through Kingsmouth and Savage Coast. Since within the 3 days timeframe you can't get very far, it's good to know that the ring will still be there if you choose to buy the game later. (obviously with the 30-days key it isn't an issue, due to the longer playtime)

2) more importantly, if you finish 30 missions within the first 3 days, you get 1200 bonus points, worths $10/10 Euros. (with the 30-days key you get an additional 600 points right at the account creation). These points are only good for 30 days, so it's advisable to spend them before the 3 or 30 days are gone and you lose login access (except if you know you will buy the game right after the trial). This is where the "no delete" part becomes important: anything you buy with these free points will remain on the account. And actually this is where this whole post originates, this buddy asked me, what should he buy, before the account closes down.

So, what to buy? Easy, the content. Of course only if you like the game (If you don't plan to buy the box, you can just leave them  there, the points will expire within 30 days.)
Ok, content... the 1200 points is a good sum for any Issue, so there's a second question: which one? Well, short answer is Issue#9.

A bit more detailed version of it:
Issues 1-4 are included the box, so you can forget those. If you go with the Massive Edition, then Issues 5-7 are out as well (Massive Ed. contains those 3 Issues.). If not, those 3 Issues are "just" some additional missions for each areas. Don't get me wrong, those are great Issues, definitely worths to purchase them later, but if you have only 1200 I'd say skip those for now.
Issue #8 is just a scenario bundle. Scenarios are grind-able scaled dungeons, some like them, some hate them - but everyone is getting 1 scenario for free. So, even if turns out you love scenarios, you can still buy the Issue later.

Issue #9. TSW's first DLC which is technically almost like a regular expansion, this is why I suggest to buy this one. True, Joel said in the letter of January that the access to Tokyo will be free to everyone this year, still, having Issue #9 is a must. There's a simple reason for it, everything came after Issue #9 requires it. (as I said, it's like a regular expansion). Both Side Stories in Tokyo, and Issue #10 are only playable if you own Issue#9.
Hence the short answer again, what to buy with your free bonus points, buy Issue#9.

An addition for the 30-days key players with +600 points like my buddy: since those points will expire shortly, it's wise to spend those too. 600 is not enough for a second regular Issue, but there's Issue#5, Tyler Freeborn, it's cheaper. And since with the 30-days key you have the 10% off subscriber bonus, the combined 1800 points are enough for Issue #9 and #5.

Of course just my two cents   (plus then the Massive Edition is not worth it anymore, just for Issues 6-7...)