After testing...
Ok, before I speak, you should know the following:
1. I've been playing for only a few months; enough to get the "customer service" survey mail, but not enough to have gotten 'serious skills' in anything until recently. By 'serious skills', I mean any skill at all over 1k. My first 1k plus skill was longblade.
2. I've followed this guide, with some alterations, starting at near 0 in most skills. So when I'm speaking here, it's not just random - I've experienced the guide as it is in this thread as well as the sticky.
3. As for a timeline: two and a half weeks of hard skilling (8 hours a day, with some days missed), and I got from almost no skill at all to 2k in longblade. So there's a rough timeline.
4. Starting with 300 ped won't do it. Because the 1x0's are utterly useless now (don't get them, don't even -bother-, the 100 ped I lost on those makes me cry), the price on the axes to start has gone up. Thus, the initial investment has gone up.
My advice:
Start with Pixie armor, which will run you about tt+6 for the set if you're unlucky. If someone tries to sell you Pixie for more than tt+1 per piece, they're taking advantage of your newness - I wish we had an ignore list, I'd have several people already on it for taking advantage of newbs in various ways, and that's one of them.
Start also with 2x0 axes - 10 of them! You can pay up to tt+4 or so for each axe, which will (with repairs making sure they're full) run you about 320 ped for axes alone. Don't be intimidated by that number, as easy as it is. With 10 axes, you'll be able to hunt for a number of hours at a time without going back into town - that'll be worth the effort. If the number is altogether too high for you, swap out the work on exas and combibos below, and go hunt berycleds instead. They're the ones that drop the axes. Just be aware that only the big berys drop the axes, and that only rarely (maybe one every couple of days if you're hunting constantly), so don't count on that as a way to get all of your axes.
Just to reiterate and ram it home, the 1x0 axes are terrible. Don't even bother with them. This is probably from whatever VU they changed them in, but they're just not worth the effort. I bought them, I wasted money. Bleh. Buy the 2x0's right off the bat, and don't waste your ped on the 1x0's. The 2x0's last a lot longer, and are significantly more efficient ped/damage wise than the 1x0's are, even with pitiable skills.
Stick with the 2x0's for as long as you can. I went through the weapon charts on pe-wiki carefully. 2x0's are the most efficient melee weapon, damage/ped, in the entirety of EU right now. They're more efficient than any other blade, hands down. Now, at stronger mobs, with more hitpoints, you will need the damage and will have to live with the cost of less efficient but higher-damage weapons. But in the beginning, the 2x0 is definitely the way to go.
Set aside some money (or buy them now if you can find them for a good price) for 2a plates for the armor. They'll run you about 17-18 ped each at a decent price, and you'll need 6 of them.
You'll want better than a fap-5 also. Get a fap-5 and skill up on it for a bit, maybe team up with a sweating buddy and 'tank' the exas and combibos near PA for a while. Then get a fap-50 as soon as you can use it, and go sit in an acid bath and heal yourself. Come out of the acid if it hurts too much and you can't keep up, then go back in once you're full hp. Spend a bunch of fully repaired kits this way, until the fap-50 gives you 10-15 hp regularly on a heal. You don't have to max it, just make it more efficient. You'll thank me for that later. Also, the fap-50 is significantly more ped-efficient than the lower faps, which will be very useful. And when taking on 8-10 cornundacaudas, you'll be glad you can keep up!
All told, you should start with 800 ped, not 300. This will leave you a buffer for repairs above the armor, fap, and preparations (you will NOT make a profit or even break even, and the money WILL be needed, even if you sell all of your loot to other players instead of tt). You'll be scrimping and saving the whole time, but that _should_ get you through to about 2000 or 2500 longblade skill in a few weeks, if you work at it - even with loot being the way it's been lately. (Please note, if you're not poor in rl like I am, you'll be able to just deposit a little when things get tight. I'm coming from the perspective of someone who eats rice and vitamins because it's cheaper than meat and veggies, so...
).
Don't bother with rascal yet.
I hunt atrax youngs (and even a mature sometimes), molisks up to scout, exarosaurs (even stalkers and prowlers in that land area on Ameth), as well as argonaut young and adults - in Pixie, with 2a plates. That's without breathing hard. Berycled Guardians and Providers and Atraxes of various small sizes give me trouble if they gang up on me, but argo young I've taken 8 at a time, even with one or two of them being adults. The difference between 15 ped for a days' repairs and 30 ped adds up fast, and when you're young, every ped counts! So leave the rascal til you need it, til you're hunting bigger things than you will here.
Ok. Once you have your axes, fap, and healing skills, and are wearing your armor, don't go straight for cornundacaudas or anything. Seriously, go east and south from PA. Go hunt Exarosaurs and Combibos in the grassy areas out there, where they spawn in huge herds. The money isn't great per kill, but it does add up, and you'll get some minor goblin bits while you hunt there. That'll be really handy later. Also, you can down each one in a few swings - and you gain skills as you kill things. Success breeds success. You'll get more skill from exas and combibos than from corns, at first, because each death of a monster 'rolls a die' so to speak, to give you more skills in whatever you're using.
Save your leathers, skins, etc - sell them to players in lumps of 500 or more (1k if you can get that many). Players pay well for larger numbers, and as a new player trying to survive with melee, it helps.
Lootius (the god of gaming loot) seems to like dedication. Don't buy a tt gun and ammo. Go out with your axes, dedicate yourself to them. When you do repairs, take the plates out (don't forget that step or it won't repair), repair your armor and fap first, then repair every axe you can. You'll find yourself not able to repair them all pretty often, but every time it gets desperate and you have almost nothing left, you'll find you have enough to sell to keep you going for another day or so. By 2k skill or 2500, you may be down to 3 living axes (I am!), but you'll have gotten somewhere.
I'm also a bit of an exception, in that I can't deposit due to rl lack of money - so you may have an easier time if you can afford 10 or 20 bucks here or there. All I have is time, so I've been making do with what I could.
I hope this helps - it's all I could think of on no sleep at this hour of the morning, but at least it updates and gives the perspective of someone new who tried it all as laid out.
