The Path of the Blade

[Sendaran]

So, for all you melee fighters out there who laugh at all those rifle blasters hiding behind the long range and who know that the real way to fight is up close and personal, I hereby present

The Path of the Blade, Part 1

I'm going to start with the basics here, even though most of the info is considered common knowledge. This way all the info is right here in the same place.

To get a smooth start, you should have about 300-500 PED cash assuming you don't have any equipment yet. How you obtain that cash is up to you. Sweat and trade or make a deposit of 30-50 USD, which isn't any more than a regular game in a store would cost. You can start with less, say 150-200 PED, but to get things rolling and to avoid a hit to a brick wall because of a single bad luck streak, 300 PED would be recommended.

Ok, so you have the cash to start, now lets decide what to do with it.

First, weaponry. You might be tempted to buy a combat enblade with a huge damage potential and try to decapitate all those nasty mobs out there, right? Hold your horses! Even though high level mobs and equipment do give better skills (we'll get there a little bit later), don't overdo it and try to start powerskilling right away. And those enblades are the most uneconomical weapons in the game, with some exceptions though (we'll get there too later). What you need is a set of RepEdge Battle Axe 1x0, the first choice for any starting melee user. Now you might ask "What if I want to be boxer or a knife fighter?". You should still start with the axes. Why? Because most of the skills are shared between professions, and there are no shortblades, fists, clubs etc. that would match the axes in economy, availability and price. In addition to being economical, the axes are also dirt cheap and very easy to get. Full tt value is 7 PED per axe and you can get them for tt+1 PED easy, making a total of 8 PED per axe. Because of the low tt value, you'll have to get several to make your hunts last long enough. Because the loot varies a lot, a short hunt can either gain you a lot or make you lose a lot. And when starting up you should always keep the risks low. So get 10 axes for a start and you'll be doing great for a while. But don't run off to any hunting fields just yet. (You can also consider axe 2x0, a bit more expensive with higher tt and some extra damage, but it's not recommended against the smallest mobs because the higher damage can result in overkilling.)

Now it's time to complete your equipment with a healing kit and some armor. The healing kit is an easy choice in the beginning, just get a FAP-5 from the trade terminal. It's the most economical one (except for the adj/imp/mod faps, but don't even start to dream about them just yet) and good enough for now. Onwards to the armor set. Now you have some choices to make. You saw that shiny Settler set in the terminal? Stay away from it or I'll cut your fingers. Seriously, it won't do you any good. The protection levels won't make any difference against any mobs whatsoever.

You have basically three options for an armor set: Pixie (the classic), Goblin (for snable lovers) and Rascal (the next-step-up-from-pixie). Pixie and Goblin are very cheap and easy to get, from about tt+10 PED to tt+25 PED for a full set, sometimes even cheaper. Rascal is a bit more expensive, about tt+50-70 for a full set and still quite easy to find. Pixie has the lowest protection, but it's also the most economical armor in the game. With a FAP-5 it's still enough for most of the low level mobs (combibos, exarosaurs etc). Goblin has acid protection, so if you want to run after snablesnots, Goblin is your choice. It also has good protection against other low level critters, so if you feel like experimenting with various mobs during your starting days, get Goblin. Rascal is a versatile armor set with good protection levels. If you don't want to fap a lot while hunting and don't mind the few missed levels in medical skills (which are important later on, and you can still get the skills later), you'll want to pick Rascal. You'll end up getting Rascal eventually anyway, so there's no harm in starting with it in the first place.

So now it's time to bind those axes and the fap to your quickslots and start to hunt small mobs around Port Atlantis. Best place with mostly exarosaurs and combibos is straight east from PA. You can circle around PA to find other low level mobs too, like daikibas and berycleds. Try full 10 axe hunts on different locations around the place and find out which works for you. As long as you have extra PED on your card, put the tailoring materials like hides and wools in your storage and sell them later in larger amounts, because unlike in real world, in PE people pay better prices for large amounts because it saves their time. Hunt the small stuff, chat with people and familiarise yourself with your equipment during the first few days.


Part two will follow, split to keep it easier to "digest" in smaller chunks.

 

[Sendaran]

The Path of the Blade, Part 2

Now that you've done some hunting and probably gotten the hang of stuff it's time to move on. You may have noticed, that exarosaurs and combibos drop in just a few swings with an axe, so you might have ended up overkilling them sometimes (doing more damage than necessary). So lets find some mobs with a bit more hitpoints and take another look at the gear in use.

So next up in the "mob ladder" would be cornundacaudas and young argonauts. So did you get the Rascal armor when you started? If you did, you can now have a quick wide smile, because that is THE armor to use from now on. But first, you should have collected all the teleports on Eudoria by now. If you haven't, go get them!

You should also consider getting some additional equipment now, if you can afford it. You might end up needing two things: a better fap for emergencies and a "panic weapon". Both of these are good to have when you end up in the middle of several mobs that just spawned on you. For an emergency fap I recommend a FAP-50. It has good economy and has a max heal of 26 compared to FAP-5's 10. It's also faster and will serve you well as a primary combat fap a bit later. You should still use the FAP-5 whenever you are healing yourself outside of combat. And as a panic weapon you should get a Katsuichi Valor. It's quite cheap, about tt+20-30 PED, and you'll be using it later as a primary hunting weapon. You can also get two more axes to get a complete set of 12 axes (full quickslot row).

So when you have your gear in shape, you should head to the beach north of Argus to chop some cornundacaudas. They are probably the most suitable mobs for skilling with axes. (At this point you can seriously consider axe 2x0 too, since the mobs you'll be hunting have a bit more health now.) This is the place where you'll be spending quite some time. You can also try small argonauts north of Twin Peaks and south of Hadesheim. Youngs do only 1 damage over Rascal, but adults do 10 already and there are quite a few of them around. Argos also have a bit more hitpoints than cornundacaudas, so you should have your emergency fap with you there because of the adults, they can deal quite some damage if you are stuck between two or more of them. Cornundacauda youngs do 4 damage over Rascal, matures 8 and olds 10. The spawn at the beach is mostly youngs, some matures and a few olds, so you rarely see more than one old at a time, so you'll probably survive there even without the better fap if you just don't run in the middle of a big spawn. You should hunt cornundacaudas and other similar mobs untill you unlock Martial Arts somewhere around 3-3.2k in longblades or untill your skillgains drop below 10 levels per 10-12 axes, whichever comes first. If your skillgains stay above 10 levels, you can continue and head to unlocking Melee Damage Assesment around 4-4.3k in longblades or switch to argonauts if your skillgains drop a lot. You can also switch to using your Valor when hunting argonauts to get a bit better skills and faster hunting pace. After MDA you can continue with argos if you still get lots of skills and maybe go after the bigger ones up to guardian and gatherer. Then you should get some 3A or 5A plates for your Rascal or consider getting a better armor. If you don't like argos or you feel like you are done with them you can move up the mob ladder again.

Next up would be "dinos" (atrax and atrox) and small drones. With FAP-50, Valor and Rascal you'll be able to hunt generation 01 drones and probably deal with an occasional 02 and 03 you might bump into, 03 might be a bit challenging though. Best place for small drones is east from Jason Centre. If you enjoy hunting bots, you can get a Vigilante armor set and you'll have no problem dealing with drones up to generation 04 at least. You can also hunt small atroxes and atraxes in Vigi, but it's not the best choice. For atrox and atrax the best choice would be Nemesis which costs about tt+1000-1200 PED (the price has been going up and down, recently mostly up) per full set for males and maybe tt+500-600 for females. If you can't afford Nemesis, the next best thing is Knight. Knight is rather cheap, costs about tt+5-10 PED per piece and will let you hunt atroxes up to old and atraxes probably up to provider or guardian. In Nemesis you can hunt atroxes up to provider and atraxes up to guardian or dominant.

When you are hunting "dinos" you can also get another sword, Katsuichi Determination. It has a bit more damage than Valor and it's a lot faster and gives a bit better skills. Price is about tt+200-300 PED.

So your next goal would probably be Serendipity around 4.6-5k in longblades. Hunting dinos and bots should give a nice skill flow all the way up to 5k. After unlocking Serendipity and maybe skilling it a bit first, there are many things you can do. You can keep on going with longblades, add plates to your armor and head for bigger dinos with a bit better fap maybe, get another Determination so you can have longer hunts with the big dinos. If you have lots of money or luck, you can get an Angel set or other high-end armor and a combat enblade-13 ME (or just keep on going with the Determinations) and go for the biggies. Or you can do as I decided, and start skilling all those other melee professions too and build up your health. You can for example try skilling all the other main melee skills (powerfist, shortblades, clubs, whip) to 2k. At 5k longblades your other melee skills are high enough to let you use just about any melee weapons with decent efficiency. You can skill shortblades with survival enblade-5 ME hunting cornundacaudas and mobs like that, skill clubs with Thorifoid Battle Club on big corns, argos or small atrax, skill powerfist with Manticore Deathbringer ME on corns, argos etc, skill whip with Cobra or Cobra ME on corns (you'll also probably unlock animal taming very quickly). For shortblades after the beginning you can switch to survival enblade-11 and poke small dinos with it.

After all that melee skilling, you'll have high enouh Serendipity, Combat Reflexes and general skills that you'll be able to use ranged weapons quite nicely too, you might have skilled them some too along the way. So now if you are getting bored with melee, you can try ranged combat and wait for more melee toys to appear in the future.

This is pretty much how I've been doing/am going to do (at 5k lb now and skilling other melee skills now) and is my suggestion how to proceed with melee professions. There are other ways too, you could for example switch to the other melee professions sooner, it's up to everyone themselves to decide. At the moment, the only thing I truly recommend to everyone is to start with longblades and use them up to 2k in lb at least, and then do what seems suitable. However, based on available equipment and so on, swordsman is the easiest melee profession to keep progressing further and further. This is my guide how to keep on going forward, and I hope it helps someone.



Note: Due to the changes in the skillsystem, some of the skill levels presented here are not accurate. Feel free to post more accurate and up to date numbers.

 

[Karde]

nice +rep i liked the detail

 

[Svetlana]

Great advice Sendaran
Perhaps MB can sticky this one...

 

[Nea]

nice one send, as a melee hunter myself too, i can say that read this if u wanna play with blades

 

[Konve]

+rep for that

Oh and it's not only the skills that has changed; Male nemesis armor seems to have risen about 25% in price as well as Knight is roughly 100% more today

 

[MindBuster]

Stickied, and bonus rep and efd rewarded

 

[Sendaran]

Stickied, and bonus rep and efd rewarded

Thank you kindly.

 

[Tyler91]

nice guide ive been thinking about slicing and dicing for a while now so this should help


+rep

 

[NiaFlyte]

+ rep, very very nicely done. and im totally usin it

 

[Zemdev]

Excellent guide, very clear and well-written (and even in real English! ;p). Definitely good advice and even though I am planning on ranged combat more than melee, I feel like I got some good information out of it. The armor suggestions are good for anyone. +rep!

 

[Wayneh]

I found that guide great, very easy to understand and clear about the points it's making. I'm looking forward to skilling 10 levels a day

 

[Mikass]

Why not melee...

Started myself as a melee fighter. Although as economic as it seems in the beggining, fighting with melee gives the mobs the chance to hit you more often. So this means higher decay on armour, so you lose more ped. With ranged weapons
you can kill them before thay reach you(depending on mobs and equipment), so less hits on armour and less decay.
Another downside to that would be that best melee weapon is determination and some en-matter sword equivelent to it, in term of damage/sec which is very important. And it just doesn`t pack enough punch as compared to hanguns or rifle. There are great handungs out there with huge damage potential and with them you can reach over 100dam/sec, not to mention the use of amplifiers and laser sights which greately boost damage and accuracy, enables you to hunt without armour tough mobs.
Last but not least ranged guns and very good for PVP, you don`t stand a chance against someone with a good ranged weapon in the pvp if you are melee fighter.

Here are some stats: Full tt Dam/sec Dam/pec
DOA Foeripper 205 92.73 4.11
DOA Loudmouth 162 65.83 3.97
DOA Rockjacker 162 84.55 4.14
DOA Rockjacker 185 86.36 4.09
Just imagine what these Handgun babies would do with blp amps on them.

Here are some melee stats: Full tt Dam/sec Dam/pec

Katsuichi Determination 123 58.33 4.12

Castorian Combat EnBlade-13 ME 169 56.33 4.23

As you can see you will soon hit the fan with melee, cos you won`t be able to hunt those big ass mobs out there with melee.

I did some research on this topic and i wanted to go with melee but your options are blocked later in the game because of the lack of powerful melee gear.

 

[Nea]

to mikass, lets just hope that we see more powerful melee weapons in the future, and btw u forget pricetags in your kat determination vs. DOA series comparison... u get 169 kat determinations in a price of DOA Foeripper

 

[Sendaran]

You're going a bit off topic Mikass, this is a guide/tutorial for melee fighting, not a conversation about which one is better: melee or ranged.

Anyway, it's true that you get hit by mobs in close combat, but it really doesn't make that much of a difference, at least if you are wearing an armor set with a decent economy. If I for example hunt Atroxes, my armor and fap costs are a lot less than 10% of my total hunt costs. And, when you spend more time close to the mobs, you get more defensive skills and some other skills too, like bravado (really slow, next to not moving when using ranged weapons). So, lets take two people with equal professional standing, one melee fighter and one rifleman/handgunner and lets take a look at their hp. There is a notable difference in the favor of the melee fighter.

But still, going for melee/ranged is in the end a personal choice, both have their pros and cons. It's pretty much about what you hold valuable: skills (now they have a monetary value too), economy, fun factor etc. As a conclusion, nothing in PE is as simple as it first seems to be.

 

[Mikass]

to mikass, lets just hope that we see more powerful melee weapons in the future, and btw u forget pricetags in your kat determination vs. DOA series comparison... u get 169 kat determinations in a price of DOA Foeripper

Full TT Dam/sec Dam/pec
EWE EP-41 Military 90 45.83 4.14
EWE EP-43 Guard 146 44.29 4.16

These 2 handguns are affordable in terms of price, military even cheaper than determination i think and with amp you can deal more damage per/sec than wit determination and you have the range advantage, and mobs can still hurt you plenty so you can make enough hitpoints

I`d really like some Crossbow weapons and Throwing daggers and such. And would be nice if these would be somehow related to the melee skill although the term melee would not be proper to describe them.

 

[Nea]

range advantage compared between pistols and closecombat weapons ain't that big of a deal, and like sendaran said lets not turn this into discussion which is better ranged or melee. i have made my choice, and obviously u have too...

gl in the hunt

 

[fric]

+ rep added for a nice guide tho im lazy and burn peds with valor without skills

 

[Kjetil]

+rep for guide.

About melee/range discussion, I think that is another topic.
Those 2 professions get different skillgain in different areas and it is more like a choise to select. Some ppl will like range best but others with fit the melee style best.

/Kjetil

 

[Akadian]

Good Job,

one thing you could have added was a timeline on things you stated 300-500 ped starting but quickly started talking about armours and backup weapons
and along side a timeline a skill line.

just something so the new comers have a guildline of when they should be looking for better gear.

other than that was good.

 

[Sendaran]

Good Job,

one thing you could have added was a timeline on things you stated 300-500 ped starting but quickly started talking about armours and backup weapons
and along side a timeline a skill line.

just something so the new comers have a guildline of when they should be looking for better gear.

other than that was good.

Well...
About the starting PED amounts: with 300 you can easily get the basic stuff (axes + rascal) and have some buffer money left, 500 is plenty to include the backup weapon and a better fap. Above that, further upgrading is kinda obviously going to cost more, but also the prices for stuff above the basics vary more.

About the timeline/skills: There are several reasons why I have presented the info as I have. First, I got my lb skill to over 4k before the change in the skill system, so any time estimates would be next to useless. Also staring at the skill levels alone as numbers does not do the trick necessarily, and I can also give just rough estimates on the levels based on some other skills that I have raised later (post VU 7.4/7.5). As I wrote in the guide, the most reliable method to follow your progress is to follow your skill GAINS, not just the levels. So take a note of your skills before a hunt and after it. If a ~100PED hunt gives a lot less than 10 levels to your primary skill, the system is trying to tell you it's time to move on to different gear and/or prey. And even if I could tell the exact levels when a person should move on, the situation might be a lot different in the next VU already: PE is dynamic.

All in all, this guide is just that: a guide, not a rulebook or a walkthrough. Finding out stuff by yourself is a big part of PE, and I'm not even trying to remove that part.

I could also add, that the general tone of the guide changes for a reason in the latter part. The first part is kept simpler, so that a newcomer would understand the main points in it. It really is intended to be read and followed in parts. By the time you have reached the end of the first part, you'll understand more about the latter and also get more out of it, as you have some personal experiences.

 

[Mikass]

Nice guide.

I have a question for you. What`s the toughest mob u can hunt with your high melee skills `n gear `n stuff?

And another thing, will there be a downside if i sell my LB skills appart the fact that i would not be able to hunt efficiently with Lb anymore?
Someone said i could lose Hitpoints or something.

 

[Sendaran]

Nice guide.

I have a question for you. What`s the toughest mob u can hunt with your high melee skills `n gear `n stuff?

And another thing, will there be a downside if i sell my LB skills appart the fact that i would not be able to hunt efficiently with Lb anymore?
Someone said i could lose Hitpoints or something.

The toughest mob I can take depends on the armor set I use and whether I use plates or not. But lets take a few examples: With unplated Nemesis and FAP-50 I can take troxies up to provider (guardian with a bit of luck and no empty fapping), traxes up to dominant or alpha (been a while since my last encounter with them so can't remember for sure the damage they deal), ambulimax young and mature (Rascal will do the trick too), argonauts up to raider etc. Adding plates and/or switching to a better FAP will of course increase the maximum maturity. In unplated Vigilante I can take drones up to at least generation 7 (I don't bump into big drones that often, so my memory isn't that accurate in this case either) and if I put 5C (8 pen, 9 burn) on the Vigi, I can take any drone and small troopers (01 & 02 at least). Warriors are a different story, since they do different damage in close combat, so I don't use melee against them, so I can't say this or that about them. These are just some examples.

And yes, you will lose health if you sell your lb, even more if you sell your Melee combat. Health is not similar to other attributes. You don't get skill gains in health, health increases based on your other skills. Some skills give more hp than others, some don't give hp at all. Melee skills in general give decent amounts of hp, especially MC.

 

[wenna306]

Good work, totally agree with all the advice Guess who should be doing the next PE Guide

+ Rep

 

[Lundburgerr]

Great Thread Sendaran


having reasonable melee skills should be a standard to everyone even pistoleers and snipers since melee skills gives you more health than ranged skills

so even if you intend to be a pistoleer/sniper you can start out as meleefighter to raise your health mainly.. Melee IS also a bit more economical to start with.

 

[Mikass]

Hmm, then you do lose hitpoints. Damn, i could have used the ped for a full LB skill.

What do you think about the change to the RepEdge1x, how to you think this would affect the "Path of the Blade"?

 

[Nea]

Hmm, then you do lose hitpoints. Damn, i could have used the ped for a full LB skill.

What do you think about the change to the RepEdge1x, how to you think this would affect the "Path of the Blade"?

latest VU change of an axe 1x0 makes it just less economic and melee skilling more expensive.

 

[Remmie]

latest VU change of an axe 1x0 makes it just less economic and melee skilling more expensive.

Ahem.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

If you look at the comprehensive weapons list, even with our favorite axe dropping down the list, in terms of affordability and availability we merely turn from the RepEdge Battle Axe 1x0 to his sister the RepEdge Battle Axe 2x0.

Throw in the extreme unpredictability present in this game (amplified by being at lower skill levels) and I believe you'll find that with this quite minor switch the plan remains quite intact.

A personal note: as one who is currently at the hunting dino level and just NOW discovered this "guide"... lol glad to see i'm not the only one!

-Remmie

Yeah, I'm the crazy chick in Ghost killing allops with a sword...

Oh and... +rep, definitely.

 

[Sendaran]

Well, due to the chages in the latest VU, I did some editing on the guide. Nothing major, mostly just sidenotes about alternative gear. Even though the axe 1x0 got nerfed, it's still a decent weapon, so I haven't removed it from the guide. I just quickly updated ithe posts, so I'll be reading them through later to check if there's something else I should change there, I might have missed something.

 

[Shish]

Most economically start weapon

hi

first thanks for the great guid.

i seen your note ion the article:

NOTE: The RepEgde Battle Axe 1x0 is NO longer as economic as stated in this guide, just a heads-up. (It changed in VU 7.6)

what is the best weapon for a newbi today?

thanks

Shai