The Path of the Blade (melee fighting)

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 most economical weapon in the game and 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.

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)

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.

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. 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. 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. 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 PED 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+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.

For discussion, comments and more info please visit the original thread located here....

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6069