Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Starting Lineage II, Need Advice
I played in the Lineage II open beta and for a few months after launch. Then WoW come out and all my friends were playing that, so I joined them.
Anyhow, I've been fairly hardcore at WoW, for whatever that means, and really, Wrath of the Lich King has absolutely destroyed it.
I'm looking for another MMO to play, and while I remember Lineage II being a massive grindfest, I also remember it being a beautiful world, and your accomplishments actually meaning something.
Anyhow, when I played before, i was on a desktop PC back in 2005. Now I'm on a MacBook Pro, and to play Lineage II would mean I would have to upgrade to OSX Leopard so I can dual-boot Windows, which makes it a $100.00 or so expense to start playing Lineage II again. Otherwise, I'd have reactivated already and seen for myself. I also can't ask on the offcial L2 forums, because they require an active account.
I'm looking for fairly specific advice. I'll probably be on Bartz, unless there are server queue times or something, or unless someone recommends a better North American server. Is Bartz overcrowded? Or are the other servers desolate? How bad is the farming and bots?
Secondly, I need some leveling advice. I'd like to get to 50+ as quickly as possible, then I'll start to play a little more casually.
Hopefully these are easy to answer questions, so:
What Dark Elf classes are best for finding a group with?
What Dark Elf classes are best for solo play?
What level do I need to be to begin to play with high-end guilds, mostly PvP content? 60?
I hope to join a clan fairly early on, ~ level 30. I can get to 20 in a day, I did that right when they introduced the newbie benefits.
I am leaning towards Dark Elf Mystic>Wizard>Summoner>Spectral Master. My friend's uncle played Lineage II hardcore and was the highest Dark Elf Summoner on his server at the time, and I really enjoyed the playstyle, or the idea that your summoned pet was actually the one doing the fighting, and that it was many times more baddass than you.
On the other hand, what buffs would I want to use while leveling? Would dual-boxing a buffer be a good idea, and if so, what race/class? I probably won't dual-box, unless it significantly reduces leveling time.
Thanks!
FYI, I play WoW about 15-30 hours a week, and that's the investment I expect to put into Lineage II. Possibly more until I hit about 40.
Comments
wow your so addict hehe 15-30 hours playing oh man do you sleep? well cant blame you if your running to be one of the top players of WOW you surely be like that haha, I like L2 specially the one winged class I find them boring becuase of half angel look but the way to get the next wing. Have you tried atlantica online? im on test of it right now im level 30 already anf its pretty amazing cool unqi battle system a strategic based moves ehhe like a chess board.
also your other questions about bartz and bots and etc.
about a month ago my drive to play died when i found out 90% of the community botted to level. Although now when i hop on and look at adena selling sites to see how rampant botting is, i noticed there has been a sharp decline in botting. Which resulted in lower gear prices and high adena prices, there has been some activity on NCsofts CR team banning bots, but i dont think it will last.
Bartz is a good server to be on for NA, that is the server i'm on. And no there arent wait times and etc like the old days. It doesnt mean the servers are dead when the status shows "light" either, the servers still have plenty of players.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Lineage 2 has changed so much since its beta, its almost un recognizable now (aside from its appearance). Any server is decent now, your best choices for NA are Bartz or Kain, and Luna is the newest server, even though its Euro, because that its new, theres lots of NA players there. The game is also not really a grindfest anymore...it'll take you as long to progress in L2 as it would for you to start from scratch on WoW and get the highest Teir/Season gear.
L2 is also dependant on open world PvP and PvE, so the higher population the better, there are no server queues, and for the most part, its servers have about double the players of your average WoW server online at any time.
Bots are also (recently) not much of a problem, they are getting massive bans (IP bans aswell)...probably NCsoft trying to boost their image/reputation for Aion...plus theres a new company running Lineage 2 in North America, NCsoft west which was only formed a couple of months ago...it is being led by Arenanet (the guys who made Guild Wars)...no longer the trash NCsoft Austin that mutilated Lineage 2 through the years and somehow managed to destroy Tabula Rasa's potential.
Bladedancer will be the best Dark Elf for finding a group and solo play (Spectral Master is great for solo, but you will be useless in all aspects of end-game and grouping, except for Olympiad...Summoners are pretty much a soloclass)..its basically a Bard from other games (2 minute long dances (buffs) that are casted like an Aura for hte whole party, and the more you have, the more mana they use, so for continuous use, you're somewhat limited (ie: you cant use 15 of them, 4 or 5 max, which is all you really need).
For PvP content you will need to be lvl ~78, and really you need to be noblesse (lvl 75 subclass and a big quest done) so you get all the benefits and will be wanted in any 1/4 decent clan.
You're going to need to be lvl 78+ (really a lvl 75 subclass too) before you can relax and be "more casual"...but I warn you, L2 is a hardcore game in nature, but not in the sense of time invested like WoW, more in the competition sense. For example to get your subclass, you must complete a very long quest which leads up to stabbing an epic raid boss with a knife to get his blood...however he drops epic gear, so all the best clans on the server want to kill him (he has a 5 day respawn)...if you join a clan and your clan's enemy fight for the boss, they aren't going to let you do the quest. Or maybe your clan just wants to do a raid boss...well if another clan wants to do that raid boss (and clans pretty much kill a raid boss at every opportunity possible), you're going to have to fight for it. Even when leveling up (more so in the higher lvl spots), if you goto level up, if someone else is in, or wants the spot that you want, you're going to have to fight. Plus after all those experienced mentioned above, they will lead to politics...IE: you fight someone over a spot, they bring their clan, you bring yours, you no longer like that clan, you start a clan war with them (clan war means if you run into each other, you can kill each other with no penalties, and there's a reduced death penalty)...So then just for the sake of fun and wanting to see their enemies die and cry in chat, people will be doing nothing but searching the common leveling areas just for wartags to kill.
So just make sure you understand its that style of a hardcore game, and that you enjoy that kind of competition before you decide to play it...because if you do not, theres pretty much nothing in the game for you...its not like WoW where you can raid/instance in peace, and hop in a BG or Arena when you feel like PvPing...in L2 its always based on PvP, competition, politics and drama....thats why there's so many cases of people murdering IRL their Lineage 2 enemies :O
Tks for the info listed above. Im considering giving the game a shot