Getting Started: Activities and Progression

Character Creation

Once you've started up the game and selected your server (NA or EU), you'll be directed to character creation. As of western release there are 6 classes to choose from: Bard, Berserker, Reaper, Spearmaster, Spellsword, and Summoner. Every class has two masteries, or specializations, which you can freely swap between at any time. This allows you to vary your gameplay depending on the encounters you face.

Picking a Class

Character creation starts with selecting your class. The text to the left explains the functions of the class's two masteries. Every class has a DPS spec, necessary for leveling and questing, but can also swap to another spec for group encounters such as PVP, Dungeons, Raids, or even open world bounties and bosses. 

The classes with tank masteries are Spearmasters and Berserkers, while the classes with heal and support masteries are Bards, Summoners, and Reapers. Spellswords have two DPS masteries. 

DPS options can be categorized by melee and ranged damagers. The melee classes are Spearmasters, Berserkers, Reapers, and the Bladestorm mastery of Spellswords. The ranged classes are Bards, Summoners, and the Sword Artist mastery of Spellswords. Melee puts you right up against the boss while ranged makes you scatter further away. 

There is a decent balance for all classes as of release, with every class having a chance to shine on DPS or effectively heal/tank. As such, you can't really go wrong picking any class. The only thing to note is that Reaper is a bit tougher to level through before reaching Student 1 (level 37), as most of its power is unlocked late game.

Summoner heals are focused on single target healing, while Bard and Reaper have more group healing focus. Bards lack mobility while casting skills, but they are stronger at pure healing than reapers, which (from what I've read) have higher ability to prevent damage before it hits.

I have only played the Summoner class so far, so I can't effectively compare the different classes. I recommend watching gameplay and researching different opinions to see which class you might prefer if you're unable to choose.

Questing and Leveling

Once you've made your character and started the game, the tutorials and introductions begin. The game teaches you how to quest and navigate the world, so I recommend following quests as best as you can. 

Leveling in SOLO is primarily done through quests. Grinding mobs grants negligible EXP; moreover, some features of the game are locked behind advancing the story. As such, the fastest and most effective way to unlock all parts of the game are to power through the story quests. Side quests are also valuable as they can grant additional rewards or even unlock Biographies, which are a different kind of quest granting a look into the side characters' lives.

Cultivation Menu

To the left of your minimap are two icons, a calendar for daily login rewards and a swirly cloud icon. The cloud is the Cultivation Menu--essentially, a roadmap which directs you to unlock the game's various features, as well as provides a calendar for daily and weekly events. Check this menu often as there are often rewards for advancing through quests. Some quests, such as dungeon instance explorations and weekly/daily quests, must be turned in through this menu to register as cleared.

This menu often has tons of rewards to click on everywhere, so if you see a red dot, keep clicking.

Some of the important features you unlock through questing are:

Flying and Mounts

Unlocks: Level 4

Pressing T, you're able to mount up on a flying sword. This sword can be used everywhere except cities and instances to quickly navigate maps. Later on you may unlock more weapon skins and ground mounts, all of which can be equipped and accessed through the skills menu (K). More mounts can be obtained through the cash shop, questing, as rare map event awards, or as rare dungeon drops.

Gaining a Pet

Unlocks: Between level 5-10 (estimated)

After being poisoned by malicious qi in the story, you need to find a way to stabilize the Bladeheart Essence inside you. To do this, Kunwuzi directs you in giving the Bladeheart form, thereby turning it into a pet. You can access your pet menu by pressing P. At first there is not much you can do besides feeding your pet excess items. Old gear and pet food can be given to your pet to turn into Soul Qi. This Soul Qi can be used in the Skills tab to increase your passives. Unlocking more pet skills depends on unlocking more pet transformations (appearances). You can freely change your pet's appearance to your preference.

The Pet Understanding is increased by spending Mysterious Parchments: Current in the parchment shop (accessed by right-clicking the parchment, or going to Crafting Menu after hitting Student 1) to buy things. You won't have enough to increase this until you're near level cap, so don't worry about it for now. Focus on feeding your pet and increasing passives as they unlock.

Navigating the World

Once you reach Cloudrise, you're able to start traveling the world. You will find Maps of the Five Sacred Mountains in Cloudrise and in your class zone which serve as teleports to the various map hubs. Areas which aren't connected to Cloudrise will not appear on the Map of the Five Sacred Mountains, so you may need to consult the World Map to see which hub is closest to your destination.

As you explore, you will find Dragonstar Respawn Points and Waypoints. If you die, you can choose to respawn at the closest dragonstar that you have activated.

There are 3 teleportation skills available in your Skills Menu which you can use to transfer areas in a very limited fashion. 

The Cirrus Drive is a skill that will teleport you to any map, but has a 90-minute cooldown.

The Transfer Rune is a skill which creates a portal between your current area and your class area. You can take the portal back to your original location if desired. It has a 10-minute cooldown. 

The Origami World skill transfers you to the fantastical Origami World (the internal world of the mind). 

Open World and Exploration

As you follow story quests, you'll also come across different activities and world bosses. Several activities are unlocked by following the PVE tutorials in the Cultivation Menu. There are some significant rewards for all of them, so it's highly recommended that you check these out as you progress.

Ancestral Records 

The Ancestral Records are various open-world PVE content lines including bounty hunting, spirit cleansing, treasure hunting, crafting, gathering, fishing, and... playing card games. 

The first activities to become available are treasure hunting, fishing, and gathering. Once you reach Cloudrise, you can do introductory quests to receive a Treasure Compass and a Bamboo Rod. 

Natural History Academy (Treasure Hunting)

 Unlocks: At Cloudrise

I spy with my little eye a tiny scrap of paper hidden behind a rock... Many of the treasures are tiny scraps of paper, leaves, twigs, or even a ring in a shoe. It's a pixel hunt, but enjoyable if you like playing with I Spy books.

The Treasure Compass is a passive item which creates a bar at the top of your screen. This indicates the direction of nearby treasures. When you're in range of a treasure, you'll see silver chest icons. 

Once you're close to the treasure, the bar will turn white and start flashing, and you will have to search the area. An audio cue of chimes and bells will play when you are directly above or beside the item. Use your cursor to mouse over various objects, and the treasure will be highlighted purple and provide a tooltip. Interact with the treasure to gather it. 

These items provide Erudition Coins, and some of the collectibles will unlock Biographies or even be usable for open world fun. In the Museum of the Continents sub-menu (gust of wind at the bottom of the screen), you can open the Collectible interface and drag usable items to your skill bar. These are novelties that can interact with other players or just provide some fun. They can be upgraded as you collect more treasures. Some of them can be quite useful--for example, if you see someone trying to grab a resource you want... throw the bar of Western Soap! (Just kidding, don't be mean.)

Beyond treasures, the compass will also allow you to discover Mind's Eye animal friends that can be collected and placed in your residence.

With the compass, you also unlock the ability to use Treasure Maps. Treasure maps are consumable items which reveal the locations of secret item chests, usually containing loot that can be sold for more erudition coins. Note that while leveling through the game will give you epic treasure map vouchers, the actual maps must be bought from a Natural History Academy Vendor.

The process of using a treasure map is slightly convoluted. First, you need to have treasure maps in your inventory. Navigate to any Dragonstar and, while standing on the Dragonstar, use your Treasure Compass item (accessible through the menu after pressing CTRL+Y). After casting your compass, the treasure maps in your inventory will have their coordinates revealed.

Open the Map, and at the top will be a Treasure Map icon. Click that icon to navigate to the Treasure Map Interface, where you'll see a column of all your treasure maps displayed on the right. Select a map and align it to your area map to reveal the location of the hidden treasure. Once you navigate to that general area, you'll find a small box that you can open for your loot.

Artisan Alliance (Gathering and Crafting)

Unlocks: Available immediately (after reaching Zhongnan Foothills+). Tutorial for crafting is available after reaching Chang'an.

Sometimes you'll see shining blue or gold spots out in the world. These are resources you can gather for crafting. One of the tutorials in Chang'an will give you free Night Scent and a recipe for Dao Appreciation to teach you how to craft. However, you're able to gather all items before then.

Gathering nodes are very rare and fought over. Blue nodes are personal nodes which refresh weekly or biweekly, while gold nodes are public and only able to be gathered by one person. Gold nodes refresh more quickly, but can be difficult to spot as they're often hidden. These valuable materials can be sold on the market once your Qiankun Bag reaches level 3.

The Qiankun Bag (I) stores all of your extracted materials. There are three levels of items: Raw, Refined, and Essence. Raw materials are ones you gather and extract from your inventory. These can be upgraded to Refined materials, and Refined materials can be upgraded to Essence. I recommend not refining all of your materials immediately as some recipes require Raw materials as well. 

Not all materials are currently available in game, but you can see the map locations of materials by pressing Alt over the item in your Qiankun Bag. Again, many of them are extremely rare and located in specific areas of the map. Because of the lack of availability there's not much incentive to share the spawn locations of the nodes, so I encourage you to explore and search on your own.

Sometimes after gathering several of the same kind of item in a row, you may receive a boon called Clear Sight and Thought which reveals the locations of that resource on your minimap. This makes it even easier for you to hunt down that specific resource. However, I'm not sure how to activate it, so I'll say it depends on your luck for now. The boon is also available through the Ancestral Records menu but it didn't provide any help in searching when I activated it through there.

As you gather, you may unearth several recipes from the nodes along with your materials. These are good starters for boosting your crafting level. You can also purchase more crafting recipes from Prestige Vendors of the different factions.

Gold of the Four Seas (Fishing)

Unlocks: At Cloudrise

Once you reach Cloudrise you'll find a quest from the Gold of the Four Seas trader asking you to fish up a Speckled Perch. In order to fish, you must purchase and use Earth Dragons (worms) or fishing foods, as 1 piece of bait is used for each cast. 

You can find fishing holes near most bodies of water in the world. Hovering over them reveals the main fish it has. All fishing holes in open world are blue, meaning they refresh weekly or biweekly, and multiple players can fish in the same area. You can fish outside of fishing holes but will either receive the lowest-quality fish or junk items. (The Speckled Perch is available in Zhongnan Foothills, near Guose Village.)

Fishing with Earth Worms is recommended for dailies or the Gold of the Four Seas Reward events, where you just need to pick up junk items or regular fish. 

There is a specific currency called Fishbone Coins that is needed for purchasing prestige items. These coins are rewarded from doing dailies and fishing events, as well as selling Gold Guzzlers (special fish that have swallowed Fishbone Coins). Gold Guzzlers can only be fished using special bait, such as delicious prawns, which also require Fishbone Coins to purchase. Delicious prawns cost 5 coins while Gold Guzzlers sell for 10 or more each, so if you don't waste your bait, you can slowly accumulate currency.

The activity of Fishing is simple. Equip the rod, select your bait, face the water and fishing hole, and use the first skill to cast. Make sure your floater lands in the fishing hole, which will pulse gold if you're in range. After ~10 seconds of casting, you will receive a timed prompt to press your cast skill when the hook is in the gold range. If you don't manage to press your cast before the hook rotates all the way, you will lose your bait and not receive a fish. If you press the cast when the hook is outside of the gold, you'll receive a junk item.

Collecting junk for the daily. Still needs to land in gold though.

Cooking

Unlocks: In Chang'an (First recipe obtained from the Zhongnan Foothills questline)

Currently, cooking is a very limited life skill as most recipes are very rare or difficult to come by. The first recipe you receive is that for the Cold Pagoda Noodles, given to you in the reward box from Zhongnan Foothills' mayor. While the box contains the recipe and vegetables, you will need to obtain meat from the Earth Beast Loot boxes dropped by enemies in open world, and you may need to purchase additional noodles from Food vendors.

There are no recipes sold by common vendors. Instead, recipes for both cooking and crafting can be dropped from gathering item nodes, or from Normal and Hard dungeons. Several recipes including the coveted Fillet of Fish foods can be purchased from Prestige vendors. All in all it will take quite a bit of grinding to get your foot in the door for cooking, but this means that putting in the effort may reward you as people will be eager to purchase your food.

Blood Ruvia (Akabane Banner Bounties)

Unlocks: Weichuan Highlands 

After doing the preliminary quest in Weichuan Highlands (also directed to you by the Cultivation Tutorial) you'll receive an Akabane Banner, which lets you do instanced bounties. When you walk into the area of a bounty, the Akabane Banner icons will appear in your Additional Quickbar UI spot. 

The bounties are divided into Solo, Group, and Team difficulty. Solo and Group bosses can be done by 1-5 people, while Team bosses are more difficult. Check the dailies and weeklies in the Cultivation Menu for additional rewards. Target bosses for dailies/weeklies will have their banners highlighted with ringing circles.

Envoy of the Turquoise Lantern (Spirit Cleansing)

Unlocks: Weichuan Highlands, before going to Huaxiu Village

Once you've met the Wick of the Turquoise Lantern and done her quests, she will give you a Turquoise Lantern. This item is placed into your Collectibles inventory. In any non-city map, you can use the Lantern to go on a Soul Journey, that is, travel to an alternate version of the map where ghosts are revealed. 

Unlike the Akabane bounties, these ghosts are open world and can be targeted by all players. They have respawn timers as well. To exit, you can use the Lantern again. The Lantern can be accessed through the Ancestral Records Menu (Ctrl+Y) or through your Collectibles, and the item can be dragged to a hot bar for easier access.

Biographies

These are quests revolving around the backstories of various side characters in the game. Biographies are listed under the Mission submenu and are unlocked as you collect treasures, level up, and finish other quests. Biographies provide experience, and can also give Astral Essence experience, which will allow you to gain bonus stats. You can only do one biography at a time and will have to redo your progress if you switch biographies partway through.

Entering Dungeon Instances

Unlocks: level 13 (estimated)

After reaching Heavenly Ridge and completing most of the quests, you're directed to enter the 'practice'/drill version of the dungeon Yemo City in Wuzhao. This is also one of the quests in the Cultivation Menu's PVE tutorial. Dungeon Drills are, essentially, scaled down story versions of dungeons which can be completed solo or in a group. Drills cannot be listed in LFG. Dungeon recruitment/LFG is primarily for normal/hard mode dungeons at Student 1, so you won't be able to use dungeon recruitment to find a group for drills.

Drill versions of dungeons can only drop recruitment orders (used for giving exp to NPC companions) and limited level gear. They also give some significant exp, becoming an optional way to grind for level up along with other content.

You will encounter three drill dungeons as you progress through the story, each of them bundled with quests.

Companion Recruitment

Completing your first dungeon (Yemo City) will unlock your first companion, Yilang. The green Recruitment Order items you receive can be used to level her up in the Companion Recruitment Menu, available under the Museum of the Continents submenu. Companions can be added to your dungeon drills and can be summoned in open world using the Summon Battle Companion skill in select maps. However, while they're very effective in dungeons, companions are noticeably less active in open world.

Getting Ready for Normal and Hard Dungeons

You can start joining normal and hard dungeons at Student 1. Most groups will have a gear level requirement of 45+, which you can obtain through completing quests. It's recommended that you gear up and learn a rotation for your class before you join dungeons.

SOLO has a built-in DPS meter (under the minimap, select Combat Stats), meaning people will want to make sure all players are contributing properly. You can practice rotations on the combat dummies in your Class Area. At level 45 gear, you can aim for 1.8k DPS. Fully 60-geared players may pull 2-3k DPS.

Make sure to follow the combat skill tutorials and know your interrupts. Also, take your bladeheart skills off your bar if you are not a healer--the is party-wide limited use of bladeheart skills, and healers require them for resurrecting.  (I made the mistake of fat-fingering my bladeheart when running my first dungeon and was incredibly embarrassed.)

Gearing Up

There are a few ways to enhance your gear. The game teaches you about upgrading with Sealstones. As you progress, you may also find purple equipment with sockets, and equipment which can have talismans placed on them.

Sockets in accessories and class equipment can be filled with Jade jewelry pieces for extra stat boosts. 

Talismans, which can be purchased from prestige vendors, can be applied to armor for combat boosts as well.

Soulforce relics can be slotted for powerful bonuses, but I haven't been able to find equipment for this yet, so no information from me on this.

Skills and Abilities

Each class in SOLO has a handful of skills which grow more profound as you level up and are able to trait each ability with different effects. Once you start reaching level 30+ you'll have unlocked the majority of your class's skills. 

There are several class-specific skills as well as shared skills by every class. 

DPS masteries will have the following categories of skills:

Damage - Short cooldown skills, the equivalent of auto-attacks and base skills.

Damage buff - Skills which provide boons to increase damage or interact with your Damage skills (for example, lowering the cooldown on a Damage skill).

Frenzy - Powerful burst skills which may also interact with Damage skills (for example, Summoner's Meteor will provide a buff which makes casting a resource-intensive Damage skill free for 10 seconds).

Free - Stun break skill which removes crowd control from yourself.

Survive - Damage reduction skill, very important in dungeons and raids to survive specific mechanics.

Control - Crowd Control skills which lower the Golden Shell (yellow bar beneath an enemy). When an enemy's Golden Shell is depleted, they will be knocked down.

Interrupt - Enemies that are casting skills will have a blue bar appear near them. These casts can be interrupted using this skill, preventing them from using their attack and dealing a large amount of damage to their Golden Shell.

Dodge - A dodge to quickly move in battle. Has a several-second cooldown. The game automatically allows double-tapping a movement key to use your dodge, but this can be disabled.

Bladeheart - Shared skills which are the same on each DPS class. Generally not a good idea to use them if you don't know what you're doing, unlock at Student 1.

Each class may have other unique categories of skills alongside these ones. 

Astral Blessings

Along with these skills, you will see a row of icons called Astral Blessing available in the Skills Menu (K). These are traits you can choose to change the effects of your skills. They gradually unlock as you level up, and are the main way to create your unique playstyle. 

There are Purple and Orange thumbs up  on several of the icons, indicating if they are recommended for PVE or PVP combat.

Glyphs

 

Glyphs are the final piece to creating a build, and are unlocked after reaching Student 1 and undergoing tutorial training. As you can see, there are different glyphs for each mastery, as well as a set of shared glyphs both masteries can use. 

Currently, we have a maximum of four Glyph Points available for use. Each glyph has a number at the bottom right which indicates how many Glyph Points you need to slot them. Some glyphs don't require any points, such as the Summoner's Aspiring Exchange which changes the summon from melee to ranged. 

These glyphs add further complexity to skills by interacting with Astral Blessings to change skill effects and combos.

Astral Essence

In regard to stat customization, it is important to take Astral Essence into account, available under the Character submenu.

As you do more biographies and activities which grant astral essence xp, you will unlock Astral points. You can reset your tree by talking to an NPC in your class area. Each astral point will give you a boost to stats, and major stars in your astral tree can give special bonuses. Your class's two masteries have separate astral trees, and are leveled up simultaneously. If you are going to switch between masteries, make sure to level up your trees!

Leisure Activities

Most PVX activities are unlocked at Student 1. This includes housing, Leisureland, minigames, and more. I haven't explored too deeply into these things so I won't include them in this post. I recommend you work hard to reach Student 1 and explore the content that opens up from there! ^_^)b

Thank you for reading. I hope this helps you on your journey through Sword of Legends Online!