Finally Free To Play (but requires box purchase)

[Miasma]

It might not matter in the first zone but once you get to a zone where they expect you to have two weapons that synergize properly you will be gimped.  Since you can unlock everything you can just choose a better weapon to train into so being gimped is a very short term problem in TSW.

There are whole spreadsheets and such but a better option is just to follow a popular build until you learn about all the complexities yourself.

http://wordpress.tswguides.com/tsw-build-page/

[Ard]

Your first test if your build sucks will be the Bogeyman at the amusement park in the second zone.  The game will blatantly slap you across the face in that fight if yours is terrible.  Thankfully it's pretty easy to fix, and that fight doesn't really require anything outside the cheaper inner wheel.

[Count Nerfedalot]

Hmm,my build (or my.play) must have sucked worse than yours, I got stopped by a quest in Kingsmouth, I think the last mainline before going to the next zone?

Whatever it was, it finally convinced me that I had to have a healing weapon and ranged would be nice too so I dropped Hammer for Assault Rifle to go with my Shotgun and never looked back.  An hour later I was able to easily beat the mission that had stymied me previously.

This game is well worth $30 as a single player experience, and is even better with a friend or three.  It was too narrowly focused to justify a subscription for me, but I'll gladly return on occasion now that it's free and most likely willingly pay for cosmetics or content as I go if they don't get too greedy with the pricing.

[Ard]

The bogeyman is just special because it's one of the first fully instanced full on boss fights that acts sorta like a solo dungeon, with full on boss mechanics.  Pretty much every ability on your bar matters going up against him, and it needs to be focused (although there are a bunch of different ways to go about it) and not scattershot across a bunch of different concepts.  Alternately, you can just overlevel him and squash him with ql10 gear.

[Threash]

The boogeyman is just a bitch because you gotta run like halfway accross the map to avoid his instakill AE.

[Zetor]

IIRC you can just LOS the AOE - I pulled him into one of those crevices around the center of the map, and just ducked around the edge when he started casting. Took a while, but took him down without taking much damage (I was running a pure dps build, no heals)

[Segoris]

Yeah, Boogeyman was easy, even with a poor spec imo, if you LOS'd using the broken/deteriorated building in the middle on the hill. Full Elem without even equipping a second weapon at that point, since I didn't understand the system. It was definitely fun listening to people complain about the fight though

[satael]

$15.00 on Amazon right now 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVKG6/

[Cadaverine]

Re: builds, I've been using Yokai's site as a guide.

In particular, this build:


It's been working out pretty well so far, and I'm pretty lazy about upgrading my gear.

[Flood]

Wow, just got to the point where I pick a weapon skill and wowzers that's a lot of shit to think about. There a lazy-shit cliffnotes explanation of the skill system?

I started playing in December, so I'm way late to the game obviously, and I tried to read up on the TSW Guide site before I picked a combo.  My first time around I tried Shotgun / Pistols, and at a certain point I started feeling gimped (when I entered the 2nd zone, Savage Coast).  So I restarted as Illuminati and went dps Fist / Blades, with the idea of heading towards the Thaumaturge deck, and I did better but I still wasn't cruising.  Multiple mobs in particular give me trouble and those charging / swarming ak'ab brood things in Black Goat woods suck balls, but I've been able to start and creep through the quests in SC.

If you're completely unsure I'd go with one of the TSW Guide builds or even one of the new starter decks they added.  You can access them from the skill screen sidebar thing.  That's what I did using Fist / Blood.  You at least get a change of clothes out of the deal, and by the time I was done with Kingsmouth that was a good thing as I was sick of looking at the default outfit.


Here's a something I learned up playing Kingsmouth twice through:

Save your Sequins.  About 3/4 of the way through KS you get higher QL weapons as quest rewards.  I had a high level player tell me to "save them and run to Blue Mountain vendors and buy new weps, then get glyphs".  So on my second go round I did exactly that and I had like 120 something Sequins.  I read up and found that Blue Mountain is the zone after the Savage Coast, so I made a Wetlands style fun run through a higher level zone and found the weapon vendors and bought two QL 6 weapons.  I think there's a market or something in game to buy glyphs but if it's there I haven't found it yet.  Anyway the QL 6 weapons make a noticeable difference in damage.  Not as much as I thought they would but I can certainly tell compared to my other toon who's sporting a QL 3 shotgun I bought in KS. (doh)


Speaking of which - I've heard you can mail things to your alts - can anyone explain how / where to do this please?



 

[Threash]

Also, don't ever restart.  It is much easier to switch to something new on the fly.

[Wasted]

Speaking of which - I've heard you can mail things to your alts - can anyone explain how / where to do this please?
 

Everything mail related is done in London, at the Bank.

[Sky]

Everyone please come back.  I didn't start playing until December and it's lonely in F13 chat. 

f13 chat works now? 

[luckton]

Still have to buy box :( ehhh, maybe after steam sales.

Should expect something in the Steam sale, considering Amazon's already selling this on sale this week for $15.

[Furiously]

Will i get at least 30 hours or more for my 30 bucks?

You should get an incredible single player experience for 30 bucks.

[Brogarn]

$15.00 on Amazon right now 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVKG6/

Well, okay then. Bought and downloading now. Thanks for the heads up!

[Fabricated]

Pretty fun but the ability to only run one main mission at a time makes me kinda stabby. Like I run all over Kingsmouth to get bomb parts but I can't also take the supply run quest where I run to pretty much the same parts of town to pick up other items.

[Threash]

They get a lot better at planning missions around that later, you really won't have any reason to have more than one.

[Numtini]

I came to enjoy the single mission. I think it made me enjoy the actual stories a lot more.

[Fabricated]

Also is there any point to kiting or should I just plant and facetank enemies outside of dodging their telegraphed moves?

[Rasix]

Also is there any point to kiting or should I just plant and facetank enemies outside of dodging their telegraphed moves?

If you have a hinder build, it's probably how you want to fight.  Past Kingsmouth town, stuff does get a bit harder.  Most of my solo builds had some inherent tankiness, so I'd just open from range and then facetank.

Ranged v. melee comes more into play for dungeon runs.  Not surprisingly, ranged is a lot easier (at least when I played) just because you have an easier time reacting to what's going on.

[Miasma]

Some builds can use snares and so kiting is viable but I wouldn't grow dependant on it because if you stay long enough to get to the most difficult zones there are counter effects that will prevent the use of most snares.

Snare isn't the right word, I think they are called hinderence but my memory sucks.

[Threash]

Hinder is snare, impair is stun.

[Tyrnan]

I seem to remember one of the devs posting that simply circle-strafing improved survivability by around 30% but no idea if it was ever proven or not.

[Fabricated]

Also the "here's how combat works" hallucination being started by a mystic BJ on the Dragon side made me laugh my ass off.

[Llyse]

Also is there any point to kiting or should I just plant and facetank enemies outside of dodging their telegraphed moves?

Ranged means you're better at the NM Dungeons so yeah... just go with what's fun and take your time 

I think by the time you hit Egypt you'll get major dividends if you start to invest in alternatives to the stun lock win combos though since Transylvania is very anti impair (No idea about hinders)

[Tannhauser]

Glad this is f2p now!  I am heavy into SWTOR, but plan to try this over the holidays.  Is melee a good playstyle?  Some games it's much safer and effective to plink away at range.  I wonder how survivable you are in melee.

[Threash]

I hear in endgame stuff melee is much harder, but for everything else its worked fine for me.

[Zetor]

I played ele/shotgun, which meant I was practically in melee range anyway (shotgun passive for +damage the closer you are to the opponent coupled with the VERY limited range of shotguns in the first place). That said, kiting can be very useful, especially in dungeons where you need to keep adds off the healer etc. In my case this meant switching out my 'Do or Die' DPS increaser elite for the inner-ring shotgun elite (cone AOE hinder on a short-ish cooldown).

[Lantyssa]

Melee is harder, but I found it a lot of fun.  For general play you can get by with either.

[Fabricated]

Right now I'm using one of the starter decks, "commando", which is Assault Rifle/Shotgun. Seems to have good synergy for AOE and single target damage, and for slogs it's basically anima shot spam. No stuns or snares however.

[Llyse]

Glad this is f2p now!  I am heavy into SWTOR, but plan to try this over the holidays.  Is melee a good playstyle?  Some games it's much safer and effective to plink away at range.  I wonder how survivable you are in melee.

Melee's fine until you start the road for endgame raiding as others have said.

[Threash]

And from what i hear in the endgame it is technically "better", you just get the shit kicked out of you.

[Kageru]

I'm hoping the terrible server lag and disconnects are due to it selling well. Frequent multiple second delays on a button press and warping / out of sync mobs is making it interesting.

The skill wheel is extremely unfriendly because all the complexity is available immediately and it is far from obvious. I think I get how it fits together now, and I like the idea of how it works, but trying to come up with builds quickly blows my mind. The number of combinations and too little idea of what matters makes it easy to lose focus.

This approach of no rush to end-game, repeatable content and horizontal progression really suits a subscription free game though. It means there's less stress about whether I'm enjoying it enough to play enough to justify the fee. I hope they can make it work for them, because I have always loved the setting.

[Threash]

Are you in the first zone? I've been playing pretty heavily and haven't experienced any lag or delays.