If you are a Free-To-Play account, you might be celebrating the additional content granted to you in today's update. Prior, players had access to the level 100 Altar of Malice content. Now you have the level 100 Terror of Thalumbra, level 100 Kunark Ascending, and level 110 Planes of Prophecy expansion to play through as well. So you're enjoying the new content, but you're finding progression difficult? There are a few things to know. Terror of Thalumbra introduced the Resolve stat to gear. The Resolve stat directly correlates to how much damage you will do (or will take from) an enemy compared to their own internal resolve strength. The more you have, the faster the enemy dies, and the more they have, the faster you die. The gear starts off simple enough. 2 or 3 resolve per piece here, maybe 5 or 6 for raid gear. What does this mean for stat progression? Simple: The higher the resolve, the better the rest of the stats will be. Objectively speaking, very little gear is actually worth keeping that has lower resolve and stats compared to the stats you will gain from wearing higher resolve. Sadly, resolve has become and still is at the endgame, the single defining stat by which all stats are now observed. Kunark Ascending introduced Ascension Classes into the game. What are Ascensions? To put it simply, they are a series of extra spells and abilities that operate independently from your own class. They don't replace your role as a monk, or a Templar, or a Necromancer, or a Wizard-- They're just *more* spells you can cast for combat. The 4 classes-- Geomancer, Thaumaturgist, Elementalist, and Etherealist -- all have their strengths and uses. Some of them synergize well with your adventure class (Geomancers and fighters, for example), and others just provide good buffs, universal utility, or exceptionally powerful damage nukes. The main trade-off is significantly long cast times that ensure you don't rely on them when you would still be doing more damage by playing your adventure class as you do. Are they necessary for solo and group content? Not really. Are they required for raid content? Absolutely. You will find raid content in KA and PoP where specific classes are required just to prevent an instant raid-wipe. If you're not interested in raiding, then you aren't missing out on too much. Finally, there's the Planes of Prophecy. The start of the expansion begins in the Plane of Magic, but you might notice two things: 1. You're currently unable to do very much of anything for damage against the solo mobs. The reason for this is that perhaps you did not grab the free box of gear near the wizard spire. PoP started the mechanic of resetting all your gear and starting everyone off on equal footing with a new set that will start you off into the new content. This means that your Kunark Ascending raid gear and weapons are effectively useless. I hope you weren't getting attached to them, because the stuff in the box is already better. 2. You may be wondering why you're not gaining any significant XP from killing enemies. The level increase from 100 to 110 brought with it such an exponential increase in experience requirements, that you will *HAVE* to do the questlines to actually level up. The signature questline's quests reward all the XP now. You will level up by progressing through the storyline. You *could* in theory level up by grinding, but it would take something of around 4 actual years for you to earn even one single level. The game's XP progression has been like this ever since, and still is for the current content. On the flip side though, the Planes of Prophecy has one of the best storylines in the entire game, IMO. I hope you enjoy!
Thanks for the write up. I'm a F2Per myself. I understand this post well though as it was explained easily enough and no big confusing words were thrown in so thanks OP! lol. I'm going to assume Resolve is basically another fancy word for Gear Score in a sense. Makes it easy to understand. I wish someone would do a write up on mercs though as they seem to be much needed to help one get through all the timelines and expansions since everyone else is at endgame and noone really does lower level content anymore. With the addition of the 3 expansions we just got access to, we can now level up mercs and equip them with gear. Not sure about mounts or familiars yet as I haven't checked on them since the maintenance. What confuses me about mercs is the leveling them up process. What exactly is the benefit of a merc going from level 1 to level 2? What exactly does it buff on the merc? HP? Power? Mitigation? Also, it seems to take days and days to level mercs up. Why? How do you get items to lower that? I saw a couple during the Scorched Sky event. Have 2 in my bank (main and shared since they are LORE) I heard there's merc specific gear and they can also use gear that players can wear. Well does that mean mercs benefit from the stats that are on the gear or not? Do they benefit from the mitigation? Can a priest merc wear plate merc gear? So many questions when it comes to mercs that I wish someone would do a write up or video on that as well. None the less thanks for this post OP! Will come in handy once we start to get up there towards newly released F2P content.
Not a full guide to mercs, but hopefully I can answer your specific questions. As a mercenary levels up, its stats get better, and the AI gets smarter (not quite sure on this honestly, they just redid merc AI last month). Also, mercenaries have a buff called Mercenary Batallion that applies to your character, even if the merc is not active. This buff is amazingly powerful (especially at endgame), and the buff gets stronger when the merc hits level 5, again at level 10, and again at level 20. However, this buff can only be used if you spend real money to unlock the "hire anywhere" feature for that merc (something you have to do for each and every merc you want the buff from). The buff also gets marginally more powerful if you have multiple mercs from the same season, and each of them is leveled. For a free-to-play player, I think the only merc season accessible to you is Shattered Lands, meaning nearly all mercs will contribute to the buff. Starting with Blood of Luclin, each expansion or mid-expac game update added new seasons, and old mercs don't count towards the buff of new seasons. Mercenaries have their own armor (the same seven slots we have), plus they have accolade slots. Accolades are basically merc-only gear slots to boost their stats. Only a few of these slots are unlocked at first, and more slots unlock as the merc levels. Mercenaries can wear any player armor of any kind. For example, a mage merc can still wear plate armor. Gearing your merc greatly increases their survivability, but (in my experience) doesn't really increase their effectiveness at dealing damage. Throughout your travels, you may find plate gear that is tagged MERC-ONLY, which as the name implies, can only be used by your merc.
Thanks that helped a little bit. I had no idea this game was pay to win. That changes things. Having to pay to unlock a buff that you say is pretty amazing.. and having to keep paying it for every merc you have.. I'm a bit disappointed to hear that to be honest. But thanks for the info. Is there no way to see what that buff even does? I just got back in game and there is an icon for the buff but when you cursor over it, it doesn't even say what the buff does. It only says that more mercenaries will increase the buff. Doesn't actually say what it does or anything.
The icon that shows in the mercenary portion of the character window shows you what the buff currently does, based on the merc's current level. If you get a hold of a mercenary token (looted item that grants access to non-standard mercenaries), then examining that token will tell you the theoretical maximum value of the buff.
