Character Builds

[Adorah]

Hi everyone,

I guess you could say that I am an old TMW player. I played this game when it basically first came out a couple years ago but I quit. I have now gotten back into it and I am wondering about character builds. What would you recommend for a good build? Is luck really necessary? What about INT if you don't want to learn magic? Oh - how do you learn magic again? I remember there was a quest for it back when I played but the game is a bit different now.

I heard about the mage build, but right now I'm practically adding my points into random places.. mostly VIT, STR and AGI.

[o11c]

Level 43

STR 26 / AGI 42 / VIT 45 / INT 1 / DEX 16 / LUK 1

No weapons or armor.

Focus = brawling, level 2. (It's really hard to increase your job level at the beginning of the game).

The stats aren't perfect - it's impossible to balance minimally for every enemy, and money is tight - but it's quite playable.

[Chicka-Maria]

Honestly id get a bow and arrows if you can its the best way to level up as a newbie, unless your in the major low levels killing maggots and scorpions then id stick it out with a knife for a while or sell something for a sharp knife, etc.. for bow and arrows your stats would need to be based off dext only at first.. thats what gets your strength in the bow up and allows you to hit things better. The quests for magic and such is on the wiki and can be found here: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Magic_Quests

Happy Hunting!

Regards,
Chicka

[Shainen]

I'm in agreement with Chicka. Best leveling is high Dex Archer then to add Agility and Speed Skill to that character.

Although have found leveling a "warrior only" character a lot of fun and would like to try training a mage focused (to some degree) character as well.

BTW, welcome back

[blackrazor]

There is no perfect build, but I've come across some nice ones.

I tend to like melee. My "snake" build, specialized in farming Mountain and Grass snakes, had LUK 51 (for crit and poison resist), VIT 60 (for poison resist and HP regen from poisonings), STR and AGI 11, INT 1, and everything else in DEX (snakes have very high flee, so you need to hit them). DEX of 70+ is good, for example. I used the poison resist focusing skill for this build. This build also has the nice option to be a hybrid archer in a pinch, to thin out mobs, or take out some harder stuff before it can reach you.

My "lady skelaton" build, specialized in farming Lady Skelatons, has LUK 50 (crit resist), VIT 40 (some HP regen and dmg resist), DEX 50 (to hit them reliably), INT 1, and a mix of AGI and STR for the rest, with at least 50+ in each of those being good. I'm using the speed focusing skill with this build right now, but the raging focusing skill would also probably be good for it. You might need a bit more VIT added in, with raging, because it applies a malus to that stat, but I haven't tested that yet.

For both of these builds, I rely on the Warlord armors and the Setzer weapon. The Setzer is much faster a weapon than either the Bone Knife or the Rock Knife, and that speed helps significantly in keeping your damage / second in an acceptable range. Manaplus is a good client for testing this, as the default client does not include a weapon speed indication in F2 (to the best of my knowledge,) even though it is quite an important metric. I have not tested the Ice Gladius yet, as I do not yet own one.

Luck is important for any melee build, as it is the only thing that mitigates criticals. Criticals do full maximum damage, ignoring armor, vitality, agility, and flee. You could have the best armor, high vitality, and still be killed very quickly by the criticals of mid to high level monsters. I recommend having your luck set at +1 higher than the luck of the monsters you plan to fight.

Another very popular leveling build is the high DEX + AGI archer, with speed skill. You will do high, fast damage, and will hit reliably. But you will be made of paper; any miscalculation, an unlucky spawn, mobs piled at doors, or lag could kill you. I tried this build, and found it effective but limiting, and not to my tastes. It works best if you have a tanking (melee) character to support you, that can hold the mobs to them, while you shred one at a time.

Another popular build is the full INT mage build. This is usually only effective for high level characters, as you need 99 INT, Astral Soul 9, and a steady supply of iron ore and hard spikes (especially the iron), to be effective. Iron is expensive to buy and a pain to farm in large amounts. Time spent farming it, could be spent directly on leveling with a different build, instead. Still, this is a cool build, very high damage, great PvP, and great looking spell effects. The wiki is a great source for how to level magic, and I added some extra details from my own personal experience with it, here: http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... =4&t=16043

Good luck, have fun, and welcome back to the TMW. I'm also an old player, from back in 2007, but unfortunately my old character (with all his cool rares) got purged from inactivity, when I took a long vacation from the game. I'm glad to be back though, and I hope you will have a similar "glad to be back" experience too!

EDIT:

Although a pure DEX + AGI archer was too delicate for my tastes, I did have some fun with a hybrid of sorts, that could take a hit and wear heavy armor without becoming encumbered, instead of the usual Forest Armor + Cat Ears favored by pure DEX + AGI builds. For this, my "yeti" build, I went STR 25 (to carry Warlord armor, 5K arrows, and lots of steak or water), DEX 90 (decent archer damage), INT 1, LUK 35 (so Yeti would not critical on me), VIT 40 (I find this the minimum to get decent HP regen and food healing effectiveness), and the rest into AGI with anything over 30 being okay. Focus was set on Speed skill. This build can still do melee to conserve arrows, but it shines at killing stuff at range that I could not kill with a melee build at this level, for example: yeti, white and blue slimes, terranites. I found that the damage / sec was not as good as with my Lady Skeleton build, so this is not optimal for grinding XP, but is quite useful for doing quests, especially the Nivalis (snow lands) ones.

Speaking of Nivalis, I also got a chance to earn and test an Ice Gladius. It is the same speed as the Bone and Rock knives, leaving the Setzer in a high speed class of its own. I recommend the Setzer as the weapon of choice for any melee warriors, where damage / sec is a consideration. I would only recommend the Rock Knife for dedicated support tanks (VIT+LUK+DEX), whose primary function is not damage output, but just to hold the monsters away from the damage dealers. Or mage tanks too, I guess.

EDIT #2:

I got a chance to test the focus skill Raging at base level 75, once I got it to maximum level of 9. I did not like it, to be honest. It was okay at hitting high-flee mobs, like Skulls and Spectres, but did a lot less damage/sec and XP/sec than a Speed build. For any mob that was hard to hit, I found it more efficient, both in cost and time, to use the Yeti build of archer that I described above. Except skulls. But skulls drop worse than lady skeletons and my XP/sec killing them with this build was inferior to the XP/sec in killing lady skeletons with a speed melee build.

The problem with Raging are several. In my build of STR 70, VIT 60, LUK 71, DEX 19, AGI and INT 1, the defensive value of VIT was reduced by almost 1/3, down to 41. This made me very weak versus Yeti, Skelatons, and Spectres, and I found myself chugging down potions at a much greater cost than the occasional potion + many arrows would cost me in my Yeti archer build. So this build was more expensive and less defensive.

Also, even though the power of Raging builds through the strength attribute, it appears to be a multiplier, which means that it won't work without high values in luck and dexterity as well, in order to give it a reasonable critical rate from which to multiply. That's four stats that you need high so far. Strength, dexterity, luck for the critical rate, and vitality just to survive, especially with the 1/3 vitality malus applied by the skill. That leaves no room for agility, so this build hit very slowly, and missed quite a bit. Most dangerous monsters have high luck too, which subtracts from your chance to critical and thus hit them, as well.

In short, Raging produces a melee character that tanks comparatively poorly. Speed is just more flexible, in that it can be used for both archer and melee, and without malus. Speed gives builds with more damage/sec, XP/sec, and less upkeep cost than Raging. The few exceptions, where Raging shines, like versus Skulls, still give less damage/sec, less XP/sec, and less drops than a Speed build versus Lady Skeletons. Raging builds seems to be more expensive to upkeep, and weaker both defensively and offensively. The higher critical rate just is not balanced by the slower attacking, more misses, and weaker vitality, with the mobs currently in the game.

Recommendation:

If we had mobs in the game, say level 275 (sounds horrific, but it only means ultra high flee and hit rates actually) with a magical and physical defense of 90%, medium damage, and lowish luck and hitpoints, with good baseXP, jobXP, and drops, that would be the perfect monster for a Raging build to shine on.

Basically, Raging is a skill in search of a set of monsters for which it would shine, that do not currently exist in the game. Skulls come the closest; we need something like that, but with much higher physical and magical defense, fewer hitpoints, less luck, and better drops.

Note:

My observations apply to both solo and groups. In all cases that I can see, Speed builds will generally outperform Raging builds, except versus a couple very specific and not very crucial monsters. Maybe at a higher level, Jack-O will also come into play for Raging, but I wasn't really able to test that at level 75. I could barely survive Yeti damage, even with maximum armor and 60 vitality, and Jack-O hit even harder, so that might be an experiment for another time. In any case, even if Jack-O is the savior of Raging, we need more lower level stuff like it, to make Raging appealing earlier on, in my opinion.

EDIT #3 *** Archer -- round two --- ***

This build I started at level 77, to fight Yetis and Terranites. It doesn't get as nice an XP/min as my Lady Skeleton melee build, but it's good for killing powerful monsters to get needed items for quests. With the focus skill Speed at level 9, this build can stun-lock (hold with constant flinching) even a Yeti, most of the time.

STR 10 (to hold about 3300 arrows, water and apples, and iron potions, plus heavy armor), AGI 80 (hits really fast with speed skill maxed, can stun lock yetis, and with a switch to Setzer, makes for an adequate melee hybrid too), DEX 80 (really the minimum for decent bow damage and hitting high level monsters), VIT 40 (makes a huge difference on the efficiency of food heals, allows me to survive the occasional Yeti critical, allows me to farm near black scorpions and spiders), LUK 10+1 (allows me to farm red slimes near black scorpions and spiders, and to survive spiders massing me a bit as I fight Terranites), INT 1

For this build, I will continue adding agility as I level, and eventually more dexterity, too. Agility is a priority. I use heavy armor here, Warlock plate and helmet, for maximum survivability when things go not as planned.

For this build, compared to my previous archer / light tank / melee hybrid build, I kept the vitality as absolutely necessary for a fun survivable experience. I did less strength, so I can carry less and must use bank more. I did less luck too, which exposes me to criticals, but at range, these are thankfully rare, and a waste of points to prevent. It's all about risk management, not avoidance. I also dropped dexerity a bit in this build, compared to the old one. All of these sacrifices, and some points from leveling up, has allowed for the one major change in this build, a move in agility from 30 to 80. This makes an enormous difference in all of: avoiding being hit, stun-locking monsters at range, higher damage output due to much higher rate of attack both with range and in melee-hybrid mode. Overall, I like this build very much; it makes maximum use of the excellent speed focus skill. It is not optimal for XP/minute, but it can work a wide variety of higher end monsters for rare and quest drops, and fun adventuring, both solo and with friends.

EDIT #4

Well, I had the sadness of discovering that crit-lock is more of a bug than a feature. It's not so much a reliable product of super-high AGI (and DEX secondary) and more an artifact of your weapon speed just happening to coincide with the movement / attack speed of a given monster. Lady Skeletons and Yeti were stun-locked nicely at AGI 82, but the 80 DEX that remained in points made for a weak attack, especially with Yeti. I tried 90 DEX (with and without the +3 Forest Armor), and Skelatons could be stun-locked at the 74 AGI that remained (on a level 79 build), but not on the 77 AGI from adding Cat's Ears. I also tried a DEX 97+3 and AGI 65 (both with and without the +3 from Cat's Ears) and that Stun-Locked Skeletons fine too, with nice damage, but then I lost Stun-Lock on the Lady Skeletons and Yeti.

Overall, the most flexible build for this level range might be the 90 DEX + 74 AGI, with the addition or removal of Forest Armor and Cat's Ears possibly making (or breaking) Stun-Lock lock for these two groups of monsters. Seems you can Stun-Lock one type but not both, unless you swap builds or equips. Swapping equips is certainly cheaper, more flexible and convenient. Skeletons, Drunken Skeletons, Tipsy Skeletons, and Zombies seem to fall into the "less weapon speed needed to stun-lock", and Lady Skeletons, Drunken Lady Skeletons, and Yeti fall into the "more weapon speed needed to stun-lock". I haven't managed to test Terranites and Fallen yet, to see which group they are in. Credit goes to Frost, Nami, and Arye for their insight into these details.

[Nard]

For easiest start, I would suggest that you use an "archer" build with increasing dexterity only. Dexterity governs the monsters you are able to hit, thus it is an absolute necessity: If you don't hit, you don't get exp.
If you plan to be an archer, go on until your total dexterity (with item bounuses) reaches 100, then increase agility to hit faster. Learning magic will give you extra experience points.

Learning magic has not changed since 2 years ago except on one point: Skills that can improve your specialization have been introduced. learning magic at a relative low level (I use about level 30 for my chars) can bring you a lot of helpful experience points. The bad is that you have to gather 80 to 100 mauve leaves to start it.

When you choose to be a warrior, stop increasing dext (in a first time) when it reaches about 30-35, increase other parameters up to that level except intelligence. (magic can be practiced with int 1). Luck if very important for warriors because they are in contact with monsters wich, just as you blow critical hits. The higher it is, the less critical blows you get, the more you give. the highest monster luck in game is 65 (skeletons), thus the warriors who want to be able to survive in graveyard have luck 66 as a goal.

Mages (first build):
the easiest way is to level as archer until level 70 ( learn and practice magic), complete Cindy quest to get a wizard hat, change status to mage with int 97 or 98...
If you plan not to use status change, as I did for my main char (except once because of complete misunderstanding); you could try the following: raise as a balanced warrior, until level about 30-40, learn magic and use the remaining points after each level to increase intelligence with the goal: int 60 at level 60. After I raised intelligence first while adjusting other parms in order to be able to kill Ladyskeletons without magic (luck 50). I also kept strength to 30 to be able to carry loot while farming
There are surely better ways to do it but I am quite satisfied with the result: a multi purpose mage, which is really nice to help others. the bad is that it was rather slower to raise, used more ores, than other builds. Anyway I have fun with it and that is the main point.

[BoomerTheKran]

RAGING WINS for warrior

I am level 96. This testing was done with a single yeti, repeatedly, with different stats

Both Raging and Speed skills are level 9

Equipment used(same for both builds):
-----------------
Setzer
Ruby Ring
Four Leaf Clover
Crusade Helmet
Warlord Plate
Leather Trousers
Fur Boots
Leather Gloves

Stats used:

Raging9 Stat Speed9
---- ---- ----
90 STR 80
11 AGI 73
64 VIT 60
1 INT 1
20 DEX 50
100 LUC 60

Above stats give(as per manaplus):

Raging9 Stat Speed9
---- ---- ----
305 ATT 276
116 DEF 137
0 MATT 0
1 MDEF 1
118 %ACC 148
118 %EVA 176
89 %CR 26
562 ADEL 351 assuming milliseconds
150 WDEL 136
1 RANG 1
542 DPS 786

Average swings to kill yeti:
---------------------
Raging: 38.8
Speed: 107

Average time to kill yeti(found by NumberOfSwings * ADEL):
---------------------
Raging: 21.8 seconds............. MUCH FASTER
Speed: 37.6 seconds

Probably Useless Notes:
--------------------
1. Speed build does not have poison immunity
Raging build does, making it better for areas with poison
2. Speed build has high possibility to freeze mobs
I am only testing how much time to kill a yeti

[chaslinux]

I guess you could say that I am an old TMW player. I played this game when it basically first came out a couple years ago but I quit.

Funny because TMW has been around since 2004.

[TGE]

im trying to build an archer, im lvl 74, how much dex is recomended?

i already have 93=90+3 and agi 82=79+3 and some extra points in vita

[o11c]

im trying to build an archer, im lvl 74, how much dex is recomended?

Get it to 100 - there's a quadratic bonus every 10 levels, that has a greater effect than anything else. Though, I haven't checked *all* the intricacies of the Speed skill ...

The only reason to have any VIT is so that you can use healing potions at a decent rate (maybe I should change that?) ... if you have a dedicated healer you can skimp on it more.

[Kazenawa]

When i want to level up quickly, i personnally level up with no particular build up to level 20. That's rather quick to reach it.
Then, i'd recommend you to get or to begin to collect items in order to get a forest bow as quick as possible.
Once you've it, reset your stats, put everything in dexterity. At about level 35, with that bow, you'll be able to kill monster in graveyard when about 4 or 5 other players are killing monsters there too.

This is probably the fastest way to level up that i know.
If there isn't enough players in graveyard, you'll save time to not level up but collecting items you'll need later.
This way, you'll quickly reach level 50, and then continue the same, it'll be a bit easier though.

I personnally first of all only put stat points in dexterity, until i get the maximum possible in it, and then i put stat points only in agility, until i get the maximum in it as well. I get and focus the speed skill as soon as i can.
Though, this build might be hard for a beginner because you have to never be hit by monsters, especially in graveyard, where you often die with only 1 hit when you're still at a rather low level.

In my opinion, it's important to level up quickly because, once you've a sufficient level, you can choose the class you want without wasting time, and the change isn't that hard.
Though, if you want to discover the game, that's not the best method at all. This one os probably good only when you want to level up quickly or maybe when you build an alternative character.

Have fun

[TGE]

thank you for the responses

I think i've seen some posts saying 90 dex was enough but saw many players ingame having 100dex.

Im thinking about resp and putting 100 in dex but them my agi wont be enough for freeze monsters (thats right i still use mallard)

well if anything i just have to lvl up lolXD then ill have enough points

[SriNitayanda]

I just posted a similar comment on another topic, i think the best way to start is to be an archer raise dex to about 90 and save skills points till level 60 when you can get the speed skill, i think it is better to skip M. eye and save the skill points u get to max speed skill as fast as possible when u get it.
after reaching 90 or 87+3 dex from forest armor, increase your agility till it is about 70-80 most mobs that can be frozen, are frozen at agility score between 70-80 with speed focus. 450-500 attack delay depending which mob, skeletons at higher attack delay yetis at lower attack delay.
after your agility score is enough to freeze the mobs u want it is best to raise dex again to 100 IMO.

[TGE]

thank you guys! you have all been very helpfullXD

[Marzon]

Found this useful thread. Thanks for all the info that has been shared here.

Blackrazor is saying that this build:

Archer round two:
Agi 80, Dex 80, Luck 10+1, Str 10, Vit 40, Int 1

is not optimal for XP / minute, but won't it give faster experience than Blackrazor's lady skeleton melee?

Lady skeleton build:
Agi 50+, Str 50+, Dex 50, Luck 50, Vit 40, Int 1

Both are focused on speed skill and are on same level character.