Hello.I am a new player to L2 and I am really enjoying the game with its pros and cons.I started only a couple of weeks back and I decided to devote myself on a Hell Knight.Meanwhile I am doing a lot of research in parallel with leveling my char.While the game has been in the market for ages and plenty of info is around most is outdated or hard to understand at least when it comes to char building.
Let me get to the point...
I am thinking that the most logical way would be to concentrate on building a decent PvE char so that he could level at some point.Then if I strengthen my economy within (a lot of) time I maybe could look at some better gear.
There go my questions:
1.Skills:Regarding Awakening skills purchase is there something you advice like keeping any of the old skills or what revelations one to choose for a good balanced SHK build?
2.Gear:When graduating from the Academy am I getting an Armor/Jewels set cause I try find some info and really can't.Now I am playing with "the 90-days" ones.What gear do you recommend as the most affordable and with a good performance for a 85+ char? What should I be aiming at in the long term?
3.Auxiliary items:Tattoos, cape, belt, underwear etc.Are they really needed?Any budget friendly recommendations? My main problem is that my dmg is mediocre (I know a tank will always be like that) and was wondering if it would be of any value tattooing some STR to buff P.Att.
4.PvP: how should I start getting a grasp of PvP? I am not asking for skill combinations but really basic things that could get me starting, gear and training wise.
1. think smart which old skills you need
keep old aggro skill (then you can enchant it from 85)
HK reflectf selfbuff if possible (awesome for oly later+reflect augment)
can keep old armor passive/party ud and enchant it (but not sure if worth)
2. from one side - more pdef - better tanking role - better gear.
from other - you have enough defence skills, so can try to keep someDPS set like moirai/R+ set for attack if you prefer do dmg/play solo
After you up 85/awake - you can take 40 diplomas from mentee npc .
If you have money, you can skip it or exchange for SS, but I recomment you pick sword+ armor+jewel - this "event" gear best solution for start.
Later you can farm money for seraph set.
Seraph set will be with you for long time, so maybe you want to make it blessed/+6
for start event sword with health sa ( blue crystal+2 r gems) is enough
Later you can make Apo sword with health/haste/+4/300 and stay with it till 95\99.
3. better if you have it, con lvl 1-3 dyes not expensive, and later you can change them to lvl 4-5
belt/shirt - same, better if have it, but it's not most important
4. do your job - aggro, drag, silence healers, stun everything
if you party not afk you will win)
tank can be asspain for enemys even if they 5+ levels higher than you
remember - cubic buff give you immunity for debuffs for 7 sek, later it give you also heal
also damage reflected from you depends on your pdef + ud skill have huge reflect bonus -> dmg on you capped, but you reflect as from full damage they did
so jewels off, use party ud - flag on mage > mage suicide himself in 3 hits
The event armor is not worth because you cant sell it later and elementing to at least 3x60 which is must for tank will be waste of adena. Better to keep soulshots from diplomas and buy Moirai or Vorpal or Twilight, every elemented set will be good till 95 lvl (I am using moirai and even with low p.def I am ok in pvp/pve)
About pvp weapon I would advice you to go with some cheap S/S80 weapon and try your luck with pasive reflect augment.
And get your CON to 90 = 100% block rate with knight's harmony
Keep reflect and enchant it
Agro is not worth I think (after awakening it does not land much IMO)
Guys thanks both for your replies, some interesting stuff in them.:)
About revelations skills I can't find info about reuse time.That could be a deciding factor for me.On a first glance I think about Endurance (does it stack with reflect?) and for the other one I am not very sure.Prevision and maybe Savage look good.
I read many people opt for Disparition or Unbind but since SHK has Knight Cubic am I right in thinking they are unecessary?
I am planing on keeping Reflect and my intention is to do a thorough cross-check between pre and awakening relevant skills.I 'll report back on the subject.
Regarding Gear...while I levelled fast my economy didn't.:p So it's a relief to have these free Academy items, so that I have the time to raise some funds.I was thinking of Twilight Heavy Attack and a "cheap" R sword as reasonable "short term" targets mainly for PvE purposes.Still I am looking into what you propose - it helps having opinions.
About Dyes what sets would you propose for Level1 tattoo combinations? +STR -CON, +STR -DEX, etc? I can wear a pair of tattoos right?
Finally a question for the distant future.Regarding Dualclassing and its possible benefits on the main, some people suggest ISS or Wynn but I fail to comprehend the advantages of these choices.Also does subclass produce any advantage other than the Subclass Passive Skills? Is it of any benefit to raise all 3 subclasses?
Savage sux...prevision is cool vs ranged chars, and nukers hit harder now so a must vs them.
Disparation works best in solo (olympiad) and on areas with many mobs, it can be helpful to have all the mobs on you go to enemy tank. Incredible situational tho since you wanna be the target of all ur oponents.
Wynn and ISS can get class talismans from Instances (teredor/spezion) or from castle/fortress, these talismans (limited time btw) give a passive bonus: all physical and magical skills mp comsumption is decreased by 15%. This helps in solo pvp a lot since u need constant debuffing.
Yunalesca thanks a lot for your reply.Highly appreciate your Disparition situational analysis.:)
Looking at SK specific skills Knight Frenzy seems almost equivalent to Savage so I am skipping that.I am very fond of Prevision as well for various reasons (both offensive and defensive).I am also probably discarding Endurance due to Final Ultimate Defense which may lack the HP recovery but seems more potent and has better duration.So one slot of revelation skill remains undecided.
Regarding the HK skills I am going to miss (consider their purchase if possible):
1. Drain Health (Magic, enchantable): a quite useful magic skill for me
2. Reflect Damage (Buff, enchantable): as per suggestion
2. Majesty (Buff, enchantable): a nice P.Def 5' buff and crit.dmg reduction with an evasion penalty
3. Deflect Arrow (Buff, enchantable): a very nice "anti-arrow" 20' buff
4. Harmstring (enchantable): speed curse 1'
5. Shield deflect magic: for 8" sends all M.dmg back to the caster.Is there any equivalent to this skill?
6. Archer's Will (passive) : gives you the option to use a bow with some effectiveness
I could go on with other skills like Vanguard, without it I would be still in 70's and not close to 85...Focus Mind, Horror (my favorite KSer troll skill:D), etc
Forgive me if I understand it wrong but at a first glance they seem to me like they didn't quite succeed in diversifying the SK and just put some specific skills (3) per version.
The diversification was a sucess imo(in terms of readjusting smaller specific roles, while not making anybody useless), at untrained eye it looks not much, however you can see how some classes become harder to beat to certain classes, or very useful against certain area monster.
Shield deflect magic has a version "spike shield" which also works for physical attacks, however, to get spike shield u need to exchange shield deflect magic + reflect damage, so essentially u can keep S. deflect magic+ reflect damage, to not learn the new spike shield.
On gear, TBH u can go from 85 to 95 with just immortal armor (lowest R-grade) without a single element, but it's always beter to improve yourself if u so feel like, twilight isn't mandatory, immortal is pretty enough if you wanna save money for r95 gear and so is the sword, it all comes down if you wanna be competitive or self-suficient(aka solo pve) which demands better gear.
About dyes, CON is nice for newbies, for example lvl1dyes CON or lv2 dyes CON are fine for just tanking purposes, and it's cheap, it takes away strenght if u buy the cheapest which does hurt on ur P atk and chance to have double duration on debuffs/buffs, but you wont notice as a beginner.
Ah yes, the awakened dyes work on a diferent manner, theyre a PRE-SET on what secific stat they take away:
The dyes are:
+STR -DEX or +STR or +STR +DEX
+DEX -CON or +DEX or +DEX +CON
+CON -STR or +CON or +CON +STR
mage ones are irrlevant so wont mention..
So str is bound to either take away CON(average dyes), not change CON(good dyes) or add CON(best dyes), the better the dyes, the mroe expensive it is.
Subclasses give only the sub-skills as only benefit for having them.
Yunalesca thanks again for sharing your precious knowledge with us.
What I meant with diversification was about the primary character of each SK class.More specifically SHK should be an evil character with fear, dark damage, etc elements which are subtracted from his awakened form hence becoming a "base SK" with some exclusive skills.This link (http://www.lineage2.com/en/game/patch-notes/goddess-of-destruction/awakening/awakening-skill-replacement.php)made things clear to me.It's interesting how they put some irrelevant skills like Focus Mind in Superior Heavy Armor Mastery with the obvious purpose to deny the player purchasing them when awakened.
For gear I am forced to follow your suggestion as the prices in the market kinda puzzle me.I mean how would it be possible to raise some ...billions only to get some decent gear @R95 (not even good).My main concern is PvE and having a relaxed levelling experience.
As for Dyes I may skip that part for the time being.Legendary or even Ancient ones are only a dream for me.TBH I wouldn't like to trade STR or DEX for CON unless circumstances force me to do so.I do like hunting solo even sometimes is boring and maybe not a viable option from now on.Based on that I was thinking to trade some CON in exchange for STR but since you point out CON is even more important for a new player I 'll take your advice.:)
15+ CON is optimal for tank since you can benefit from the healing from cubic. Imagine you have 40k HP, you will get healed by 4k/15s (10% of the maximum amount of your HP)
I had the wrong impression about skills and awakening ones.Only those related to awakened ones are allowed to be kept.So I was forced to buy all new SHK skills (due to being superior) except Reflect and Shield Deflect Magic that IMHO (especially the latter) are far superior to Spiked Shield.About Revelation skills I chose Prevision and Earth Tremor.Only problem for now is that I can't use Reflect due to both NPC Knight buff and ISS buff not allowing stacking with one melody I don't remember atm.So I am trying to understand how can I use it.Or is it an Olympiad / CoC skill only?
Draecke: Now the hat is an interesting idea I had not in mind.:)
I thought I should start with buying a weapon and evolving it slowly.But I don't get the attribute feature on the weapons.According to l2wiki (http://l2wiki.com/Attribute_System) It is supposed to enhance the corresponding Elemental (or Dark) damage produced by a skill.But all my skills (Justice Punishment, Last Judgement, Gust Blade, Chain Galaxy) are physical damage skills.Am I missing something?
Also Armor Sets are diversified to Common, Defense and Attack.Are the common ones able to become Defense or Attack ones?
Regarding base attributes (STR, CON, etc) are there any limits or you can go as far as you like?
Just finished Subclass Quest and thinking of raising my first one as my activities on the main are the casual ones (K85, Teredor, Zaken and Bloody Swampland).I am thinking of raising an ISS or Wynn as suggested but can really decide.ISS seems more interesting but Wynn would level faster.Also is it of any importance to the subclass regarding racial skills? I can choose any race for subclass but my main is human.I try read here relevant information but I really can't understand it well.
Thank you all for you replies it really motivates me keep reading and searching.And also forgive any noobish questions I make, I only hope someone else may find them helpful.:cool:
I am now heading to 88 but let me answer some of my own questions since someone may find it useful.
Armor R-Grade can be given the Defense/Attack option in the blacksmith shop with a very small fee per item.I am still unsure about the base attributes caps but I haven't researched it thoroughly yet.Nevertheless I plan to follow the "90 CON" rule as all suggest.
Now I am facing with a lol situation in CoC (Ceremony of Caos).I am almost harmless in there.What I don't get is why my Chain Strike is always failing to pull somebody close to me.Not to mention Shield Impact never stuning.There's something strange going on.:DWhile I don't enjoy getting smashed (sometimes two-three hits KO) CoC is a very interesting experience that puts you into the PvP aspect of the game.That was a question I had and now answered.Also mysterious marks are nice to collect as they could be used for some nice items (at least for my level).
My current gear consists of the Event items with the Attack option on Armor.Chose it since I was very weak in my solo missions.I am now getting Twilight Items, slowly as prices going up and down like crazy and plan to slowly again (:p) start putting some elemental resistance on them.Since there are 5 items on the armor set there should be 3 items with same elements (ex. Fire, Wind, Holy) and the other 2 with the other three opposite elements (ex.Water, Earth, Dark).Which set of elements would you propose on the three items and which on the two for a balanced PvE, PvP setup?
Also could anyone either answer me about the elemental addon on the weapon or at least point me to where I could read and understand what's going on?
your stun/pulling skills are impacted by the low learn skill level aka your low level compared to the ppl you meet inside as there exist an PVP penalty if your lower level then the one you're attacking.. things will go better once you level up more.
also I bet right now you don't have basic epics so no extra boosts for your skills to land versus most 98+ ppl that have at least some CoC jewels and/or frinteza/regular aq/baium etc.
in short nothing to worry about right now.. just level up and save up money along the way for when your near 98/99 you can afford R95 gear with some basic epics :)
I wasn't aware of the PvP penalty based on level difference, now it becomes a lot more clear.And you are correct my gear is the free items you get when awakened.I was wondering are everyone inside CoC built for that event (gear wise) because I never see people like me in there.:)
Any suggestions about elements for resistances? Even some hints might help.
About the weapon elemental enchantment, quoting from l2wiki:
Weapon attribute
Weapon attribute has impact on damage from skills only if the skill attribute matches the weapon attribute.
If they do not match or if a skill doesn’t have an attribute, the attribute doesn’t have any impact on damage from skills.
An attribute can be increased up to 150 with attribute stones, from 150 to 300 – with attribute crystals.
It seems I was misguided into thinking elemental attribute is valid only for skills, while it seems that for normal hits the extra damage (minus enemy resistance I guess) may apply.But thinking about it who really uses normal hits in PvP as most people (from my tiny experience) use their skills at 90%? Or is it more suitable for PvE?
Concerning PvP, I have actively participated into some CoC and Oly (recently) events.I still fail so many times to effectively stun the opponent, the same goes for pulling with chain strike.My conclusion here is that if I want to decently PvP I need invest in jewels.I would say that Wynns locking me with their marks then throw the death upon me and Othells appearing out of nowhere stubbing my back are giving me the headache at most times.:)
PvE wise I didn't have any major problems.I even did my solo dailies with Warrior's buffs for faster killing.
About my economy...I managed to get a Twilight Heavy set (+2 / 3x60) and an Apo Cutter.Getting actively involved into the market really pays off.
Now my next concern is how am I supposed to build my char.I really like the fact that there are so many possibilities to look at.The obvious path would be going for defense.But is it the optimal one?;)