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ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu0FEcNkLtE&hd=1

Quick Links: Official Game Sites and Info Sites

Vindictus Main Site - Go here to register, get the client, read about the latest events, and carefully avoid the forums because they're terrible.
Vindictus Wiki - Wiki that is somewhat spotty, but can provide some information other sources cannot.
The previous thread - Old times, old crimes.

Guides

New Player Gearing Guide - A thorough explanation of what you need to do to get the good stuff
Boss Stats, Caps, and QB Requirements - A comprehensive table that tells you the stats for raid bosses, so you know what kind of stats you need to do appreciable damage to them
Season 3 Raid, 12-Man Raid, and Special Raid Break-off Guide
Mood Missions Guide - Get those buffs, free as can be

INTRO



Vindictus (known as Mabinogi Heroes in Korea) is a free-to-play action MMORPG that uses the Source engine. The game features pretty graphics, a dramatic soundtrack, and interesting-ish stories. It also has fierce combo-based fighting and rear end in a top hat physics. If you're tired of WoW clones and the DPS/Tank/Healer trinity, Vindictus is a game you should definitely try.

Gameplay

The meat of Vindictus is the combat. The game is a third-person action game and the controls (keyboard, keyboard+mouse, and gamepads are all supported) allow for straightforward execution of your character's abilities. Battles are fluid, fast-paced, and depend on your reflexes and ability to think quickly under pressure. Chain together weak and strong attacks to perform special moves called smashes, which deal lots of damage and can stun enemies. Use secondary weapons like spears and bombs to hit distant enemies and break body parts off of bosses. If that gets boring, try grabbing a nearby object and smashing someone with it, or press E to grab your foe and punch him to death. Or slam him into a wall. Or kick him off of a cliff. Or drop-kick him into a bunch of other dudes. The possibilities are many. Plus, killing enemies with sick wrestling moves restores health!

What about defense? There's no Evasion stat to keep you alive: If you don't want to get hit, do your own dodging. Or block the attack. Or counter-attack to reflect the damage back at your foe. Every character has their own methods for self-preservation. Learn them well and you'll be soloing raid bosses in no time!

Playable Characters



Vindictus has twenty-two playable characters. They're characters, not classes, and they shouldn't be pigeonholed into typical MMORPG roles.
  • Lann is a quick dual-wielding gladiator. He starts with Twin Swords and has the ability to double-dodge, then attack his opponent's flank while it's exposed. Later on, Lann can pick up Twin Spears. In exchange for losing most of his dodging ability, he gets to spin around and dish out lots of damage, dicing enemies like strawberries in a blender. The biggest challenge facing Spear Lanns is the fact that bosses rarely blend well and can easily kill a careless player.
  • Fiona is the shield user. For weapons, she starts with the fast Long Sword. Later, she can pick up the Long Hammer, which is slower but potentially more powerful. Fiona's real trick, however, is that she can counter-attack with her shield. After a carefully-timed block, Fiona can unleash an extremely damaging attack that can stun enemies. Fiona is great in solo play because she can outlast nearly every boss. She truly shines in groups and raids because she can draw a boss's attention and get hit without taking damage, or really lay down the damage herself.
  • Evie is a wizard from the old school. She starts with staves and can launch magic missiles, fireballs, lightning bolts, and icicles at enemies. Later, she can wield battle scythes and tear through enemies like the physical characters while gaining the ability to summon wisps and inflict damaging debuffs on enemies. She's one of the few characters who's good at support, with a decent variety of healing abilities and party buffs, though which kind of weapon she has equipped determines which buffs she can use. Staff for healing, scythe for stamina regeneration.
  • Karok is huge. He's the strongest physical attacker in the game, capable of sending enemies flying away from him even with simple hits. His battle pillar can be used to smash hordes of enemies; then, Karok can throw his pillar away and start punching enemies into submission. He can even grapple with some bosses, dealing damage or stopping their most powerful attacks mid-swing. The Cestus, Karok's alternative weapon, turns the punching up to eleven. The cestus makes Karok faster, but negating damage becomes more... complicated. On the other hand (heh), he can charge up his cestus to fire a big explosion.
  • Kai is the token archer. He starts the game with a bow. "What kind of bow?", you may ask. "Is it a shortbow or a longbow?" Well, it's both. Kai can switch between the two modes at will during battle. Shortbows allow for quick attacks at close range, while the longbow form allows for long-range attacks that need some time to charge up. Kai's other weapons is a Crossgun a la Van Helsing. It can rapid-fire, shoot a big explosion, and has some melee capabilities.
  • Vella is a dual-wielder like Lann but her play style is substantially different. While Twin Sword Lann survives by dodging, Twin Sword Vella can choose between avoiding hits and countering them with Cross-Slash. Vella can happily spend all of her time up in a boss's business, repeatedly countering its attacks without taking damage. A Twin Sword Vella can also stand back and reflect a ranged opponent's projectiles back at them for lethal damage. Chainblade Vella is a much different beast: Using chains means losing the ability to counterattack, but their impressive reach allows Vella to stay out of a boss's melee range while still inflicting lots of damage. Chainblades also give Vella access to a few utility moves, such as an attack that targets break-off points and a few moves that can lock bosses in place.
  • Hurk is a greatsword user who can chain attacks together even after his stamina runs out, making him a very aggressive character. He has two methods of avoiding damage - Deflection, where he uses his gigantic sword to parry an attack and get a damage bonus for the followup smash, and Impenetrable, a buff that is applied to the character after one of his two dodges. His dodges and smashes also move him very far, making him extremely mobile. Hurk's second weapons is the "Teide," which is just Hurk dual-wielding a sword and a shotgun. Hurk hits enemies with the sword and shoots them with the gun. The result is a more conventional, dodging-centric gameplay style.
  • Lynn is a spear princess. The long reach of her weapon and the agility of her movements means she can easily strike enemies and pole-vault away without getting hit. Her specialty is stacking the "Swift Assassin" debuff on enemies and then detonating the stacks with "Five-Finger Death" to cause significant damage, inflict stun, and recharge her stamina. Her second weapon, the battleshade, is an umbrella that Lynn can use to beat on enemies. The battleshade fighting style is highly evasive and acrobatic, but can be difficult to use. Equipping a battleshade grants Lynn access to her Qi, which slowly recharges on its own and is used to empower attacks. Good Qi management is needed to maximize one's damage output.
  • Arisha is another battle wizard. She uses spellswords and spellwhips. By attacking, she charges a stat called MP. When she has some MP, she can empower her weapon to continually deal a flurry of smashes. She can also send out a mana crystal, hit enemies a bunch with her sword to empower said mana crystal, then make the crystal explode to damage and stagger nearby enemies. Arisha also has a few spells that cause explosions, allow for teleportation, and can even stop time for enemies for several seconds. Arisha's second weapon, the spellwhip, promotes a more aggressive playstyle. In exchange for more demanding defensive skills, Arisha gets a weapon that can hit a wide area around her and can deal massive amounts of damage very quickly. She also gains access to SP skills that grant short bursts of stamina or health regeneration.
  • Sylas is a shadow mage who uses his power to control Phantom Daggers. He is a mid- to long-range character who excels in mobility and has to avoid getting hit to keep up his self-buffs. These buffs allow him to gain extra damage on his attacks and can also offer support with active skills that give others lifesteal, a healing shield and an attack and stamina regen buff. These are laid in an area and affect those who stay in the zone, making him a valuable team member in raids.
  • Delia is a heavily-armored princess who fights with a large sword (but not the same kind of sword as Hurk, so don't get any ideas). Her smash chains are long and ponderous but allow her to move around bosses while attacking. Despite being difficult to direct, she is unusually powerful. To maximize damage dealt, alternate between smash chains that end with powerful overhead strikes and smash chains that end with stamina-recovering slashes.
  • Miri is a dragon girl who fights with a large crescent-shaped blade called the Dragonspine. She's nimble and can execute sweeping attacks in melee, or use the chain attached to the Dragonspine to throw her weapon to strike at groups of enemies from a distance. At level 20, Miri unlocks the power of Flamebreath, a resource unique to Miri that allows her to add powerful smashes to her combos. These attacks are massive and can wipe out large numbers of enemies at once. In addition to her dodge, she can avoid damage by parrying attacks and following up with more smashes.
  • Grimden is a shadowy super-assassin who fights with a special curved sword called the Katamadhar. He can strike enemies with incredible speed, chaining attacks together to multiply their power. Appropriately for an assassin, he also inflicts extra damage to bosses when he strikes them from behind. Grimden can even create shadow copies of himself and use them to overwhelm enemies with a rain of attacks, or swap positions with them to escape from danger.
  • Eira is a gun-fu magic lady who uses twin mana-powered revolvers. Her combat style is quick and acrobatic, allowing her to avoid enemy attacks while keeping up her own offense. She excels at dealing damage to targets directly in front of her, but she can also strike all enemies around her. Like Arisha, she can build MP by attacking but unlike Arisha, she doesn't use MP to empower her attacks. Instead, she uses mana to enhance her mobility to avoid damage and launch flanking attacks. Eira can also empower her revolvers with a few special effects, such as a weakening bullet that makes bosses take extra damage and a bullet that creates an anti-gravity field in a small area to trap and damage enemies.
  • Belle is a small child with a big axe. She's quick and evasive and her swings can sweep to hit lots of enemies or powerful overhead chops that deal major damage to anything directly in front of her. By attacking or dodging, she can also build up a self-buff that she can consume to launch a series of strong smashes that also parry incoming attacks. Belle is a remarkably aggressive character who nevertheless requires some care to use safely and effectively.
  • Lethor is a martial artist/punch wizard with severe depression. In addition to punching and kicking enemies, she can also block attacks in rapid succession and counter with her own combos. One of her weaknesses is a tendency to overuse stamina by spamming smashes, but she makes up for it by recovering stamina by hitting with her normal attacks.
  • Kael is a royal knight turned antifa supersoldier. He uses a long swordstaff that he can use to stab, slash, and parry. His attacks are a bit slow but cover a massive area, making it easy for him to hit lots of enemies or strike bosses from range. His parry is quick enough to allow a skilled player to completely negate multi-hit combos from many bosses.
  • Tessa is a rapier gem-wizard lady. She's extremely good at slashing and dodging and lunging and jumping around. What makes her interesting is the way she uses her sword to inscribe scary danger marks on enemies and then explode them (the marks and the enemies) for massive damage and to restore stamina. Quick normal attacks inscribe the mark, smashes stab the enemy to empower the mark, and flourishes such as Tab detonate the mark. In addition to this basic pattern, Tessa has a small variety of tricks for rapidly inscribing marks while parrying or dashing.
  • Dan-Ah is a swordswoman with the ability to speak with souls and control them in conjunction with her Soulblade. In addition to a suite of sick katana moves, Dan-Ah can teleport to quickly close in on or manuever around opponents and strike. Rounding out her skillset are a block and a parry, which respectively require planning and careful timing to use but allow her to more effectively weave her combos between enemy attacks.
  • Letty is a cannoneer. As one of the game's few ranged attackers, she's best at inflicting large amounts of damage on enemies from a safe distance. She's slow to attack so care is needed when going on the offensive. However, she does have some tricks to help her when danger comes close, such as a Tab dodge that launches her backwards and an attack skill that ignites a small and short-lived but dangerous wall of fire in front of her. For enemies who move quickly or have their own ranged counters, Letty can double-dodge and dodge-smash to inflict respectable chip damage.
  • Latiya is a fighter/mage who wields a jousting lance. Her weapon is heavy and slow but she supplements it with the Kuja, a magical grappling hook she conjures and uses to launch herself at enemies. She can also block and counter with her lance to deal massive damage. She's extremely powerful in the hands of a capable player but a careless one will whiff attacks, waste the energy needed to use the Kuja, and eat hits from faster opponents.
  • Charon is an orb magician who specializes in blasting enemies with pure energy. She's a versatile attacker, capable of wearing down faster opponents with magic homing missiles and quick beam blasts, or dealing burst damage with large explosive beams. She also has access to a variety of AOE attacks that cost SP, and most of these can be further empowered by spending MP. She can teleport short distances to dodge, or use a block/dodge combo to evade and counterattack.

Story



This game has a long, over-arching plotline involving questions about free will, predestination, time travel, and sexual harassment. The plot of Season 1 centers around your activities as a mercenary with the Crimson Blades, fighting to protect the village of Colhen from the demi-human Fomors. Season 2 takes place in a parallel universe in which you quit merc work after a week and move to the pirate town of Malina to become a treasure hunter. Along the way, you find some treasure and it's honestly rather boring. Season 3 picks up where Season 1 left off while bringing in the characters from Season 2 to create exciting new conflicts involving lots of deities getting their asses beat by you and your buddies.

All of this story and plot and character development aren't important. All of these words are just a bunch of excuses to send you to...

Dungeons and Raids



All of the PvE in Vindictus happens in dungeon instances. Up to four people can form a party and defeat bad guys, negotiate hazards, find loot and basically have a grand old time. For Royal Army Raids, up to twelve people can join in. Raids are tons of fun because they're all about beating the crap out of gigantic bosses that will kill you dead if you're dumb. They're also quite rewarding, as bosses can drop valuable crafting and upgrading materials. You might even strike it rich by picking up that ultra-rare drop from an end-game boss!

Guilds



Vindictus's guild system allows you, oh goony person, to chat with other goony persons about random crap and maybe organize a raid train. Guilds themselves have experience levels and unlocking higher levels gets you rewards like bonuses to experience and discounts on improving your equipment. It is very good to be in a guild.

The guilds to know are:
  • diabetic dogs (An Official Goon Guild, generally not active aside from the leader)
  • FartLords (Official, but also not active as far as I know)
  • Disgusting Duo (Pubbie, Goon-Friendly)
  • Lion Heart (same)
Ask in the thread about guilds before applying to join anything so you can be directed to the guild that best fits your needs.

How To Get Started



Are you excited as hell about playing this game? Good. Go to the official site and click Play Now to start downloading the client or the official Nexon launcher. Register for an account if you don't have one. Alternatively, you can install the client through Steam, but running Vindictus through Steam is a bit iffy. I'm personally quite keen on the Nexon Launcher because it works and keeps the client up to date.

Once the game is running, log in and make a character. Run through the prologue at least once so you understand the controls and know how to fight. Congratulations, you now have a real character and have some measure of control over yourself! Start visiting NPCs, get some quests, and head to the docks to do battles. Once you're settled in, look to the lower-left corner of the screen for an icon that looks like this:



That's the button for the Guild window. Go to the Search Guilds tab and look for the resident guild for whatever server you're on, like this:



Send in an application, post your in-game name in this thread, and someone will accept you eventually. From there, any guild worth being in will guide you through the tougher battles and give you advice and maybe even free stuff. Who knows? It doesn't hurt to ask so long as you don't ask for too much at once.

Note that you should post before you apply or failing that, post immediately after you apply. Some admins are quick to reject mystery applicants because spending a week asking "who dis is" gets old quickly. Also, guilds can go inactive; so inactive, in fact, that they don't even bother to post and say that they're inactive.

ArchWizard fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jan 24, 2023

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ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.


ADVANCED TOPICS

Skills



Skills are an integral part of Vindictus gameplay. They grant special abilities or increase your precious numbers. Run battles or eat capsules to earn AP, then spend that AP to level up your skills in the Skill window. Some skills require other skills to be at a minimum rank; this will be indicated in the skill description. The game's Growth Goals system will provide a little guidance when choosing skills to level. In addition, I'm going to make some suggestions here:
  • Equipment skills - It's not enough to simply be at the right character level to use most equipment; you need to level your weapon and amor masteries as well.
  • Defensive skills - These will keep you alive. Focus on the dodging and blocking skills specific to your character before going for the generic Defense Mastery.
  • Offensive skills - Improves your damage output, with different skills boosting the effectiveness of different attacks. Start with Smash Mastery and Critical Hit Mastery, then attack skills specific to your character. Fun fact: Some smashes get follow-up movies if you reach a certain rank with them. Pay attention to skill descriptions to find out which ones do this and put AP into these when you can.
  • Battle Respiration and Stamina Mastery - These let you smash and dodge for longer before needing to back off and recover stamina.
  • Life Flare - Grants a chance to not die when hit by an otherwise fatal blow. When maxed out, has a base 1-in-3 chance of saving your life.
  • Campfire - Making a campfire in dungeons allows you to repair, regenerate, and obtain two buffs; one increases your damage and the other regenerates your armor's combat durability. Higher levels of Campfire make the buffs better. Good for anybody who wants that added edge in boss fights. There are also super-expensive guild campfires that allow you to purchase buffs during missions that boost your power and drop rates.
You can earn an infinite amount of AP over your character's life so you can't gimp yourself permanently. Nevertheless, it's a bad idea to level Meditation, the skill that periodically grants free AP to all of your characters while you're logged in. No, seriously: A long time ago someone figured out that it takes a couple of years for maxed-out Meditation to pay for itself. You can get it at rank F for free, but don't bother with it after that unless you have nothing else to spend AP on.

At level 40, you'll be able to complete the Pact questline. This lets you unlock your transformation ability, which lets you unleash your Paladin or Dark Knight abilities in battle for a few minutes. Paladins gain a slight boost to defense, Dark Knights gain a decent boost to attack power. Leveling transformation skills requires a different type of skill currency called Transformation Points, or TP. Earn these by running battles in general and by transforming in battle and killing enemies. The more enemies, the better. Feed your soul with the agonies of your foes.

Commerce and Trade



Lots of trade is conducted via the marketplace. The marketplace, accessible from the first three towns, is a place to dump poo poo you don't want but others might. Most items can be bought or sold through the marketplace. Alas, there are caveats to note: You cannot trade items bound to you unless you can use unbind potions on them. You cannot trade many cash shop items. You cannot trade empty dye ampoules, though those filled with dye can be sold. You cannot trade many items given away during events, even if you busted your hump to earn them. Is a Lann not entitled to the sweat of his brow? Apparently not.

The marketplace also has a function for searching specifically for ingredients for a particular craft. This is useful if you know what you want and that you don't want to buy it pre-made for one reason or another.

Fashion?!?!




Vindictus has a robust array of cosmetic dyes, clothing, hairstyles, underwear, tattoos, make-up, and so on and forth. The more creative and fashionable players have combined these to make their characters look fabulous. The not-as-creative ones dye their poo poo whatever colors they can find, or spend money on gacha outfits for an easy look, instantly.

There's no wrong way to decorate your character, so go hog wild.

Crafting



As you're leveling your way through Vindictus, most of your equipment will be given to you as a reward for passing milestones. At level 90 and beyond, gear is crafted by specific NPCs. Existing in parallel to this is the Expertise system, which allows players to craft equipment so long as they have the materials and minimum skill level. The crafting expertises are:
  • Weaponsmithing - Longswords and long hammers (Fiona), twin swords (Lann and Vella), twin spears (Lann), battle pillars and cesti (Karok), battle scythes (Evie), chainblades (Vella), greatswords and teides (Hurk), glaives (Lynn), spellswords (Arisha), phantom daggers (Sylas), bastard swords (Delia), dragonspines (Miri), katamadhars (Grimden), mana revolvers (Eira), axes (Belle), swordstaves (Kael), rapiers (Tessa)
  • Armorsmithing - Heavy armor, plate armor, and shields. Also, all level 90+ armor.
  • Tailoring - Cloth armor, Light armor. For level 90+: All armor sets except Regina, Abomination, and Dullahan
  • Goldsmithing - Earrings, belts, rings, spellbooks/totems, staves (Evie), bows and cross guns (Kai), foci and spellwhips (Arisha), battleshades (Lynn), crests (Lethor), soulblades (Dan-Ah), cannons (Letty), orbs (Charon)
A character who reaches a certain proficiency in an Expertise can "share" their proficiency with other characters on the same account, allowing them to craft the same items.

Meanwhile, there are also three skills that accompany the four equipment expertise skills:
  • Element Stone Crafting - Get one equipment crafting skill to 99 and go to your trainer to take a test. After you pass, you can ask to learn Element Stone Crafting. This allows the character to assemble stones for Power Infusion.
  • Dismantling - Allows the character to take apart equipment or element stone bundles and get Element Stone components from them.
  • Gathering - This Season 2 skill lets you gather from Luminary trees in S2 and S3 dungeons. You can get fruit (nearly worthless), orbs (good for crafting or upgrading equipment), and various Element Stone ingredients.
These skills are not shared between characters on the same account. You also can't use a shared expertise level to unlock Dismantling or Element Stone crafting, which is a bit of an irritant. Still, they're good for saving money in the long run.

Expertises have some features that make them worth leveling:
  • You can save money crafting high-level gear by avoiding the NPC gold cost
  • You can—if you're lucky—create high-quality gear (up to four stars), whereas drops and NPC-crafted gear can only come at two-star quality
  • You can craft whatever you want to get instead of hoping it drops from a battle
  • You can craft equipment that isn't obtainable any other way, like cosmetic or deprecated outfits
  • Leveling an expertise unlocks Dismantling and Element Stone crafting, which is needed to Power Infuse your gear
However, leveling an expertise is expensive and time-consuming. Don't do it unless you're rich and bored.

Upgrading



Your equipment can be upgraded in several ways. These processes are designed to separate you from your in-game gold, real-life money, and sanity.
  • Enhancing - Works on weapons and armor. Using enhancement stones and elixirs and some gold, you can increase the enhance rank of your equipment up to +15. Going from +0 to +3 always works. Going to +4 or +5 can fail, and doing so reduces the rank by one. Going to +6, +7, or +8 can fail; failure will reset the rank to +0. Failing when going to +9 or higher can destroy the item. If you get enhancement runes from the cash shop, seal shop, or events, you can prevent bad effects on failures up to +12. The seal shop also sells runes that let you take level 100 equipment from +12 to +13, and events occasionally give away runes that let you do the same for a piece of level 105 gear.
  • Reforging - If you fail to enhance a piece of equipment that was +10 or higher, it can't be upgraded again unless you Reforge it. You need several replacement components, an enhancement rune, Damascus Steel, and several thousand AP to make that piece of equipment upgradeable once more. Reforging is an important part of the gearing process and a lot of the game revolves around it.
  • Accessory Enhancement - Distinct from normal enhancement because it plays by different rules. Level 85+ accessories can be enhanced to add some minor stats, as well as "Counterforce." Counterforce is needed to deal meaningful damage in the highest-level raids, so it's important to invest in it even though it's a massive gold sink. Accessory enhancement cannot destroy equipment but it still has a frustratingly high failure rate.
  • Enchanting - Applies to weapons, armor, and jewelry. Find an enchant scroll and bring it to Brynn to have its power transferred to a piece of equipment. Then watch as the enchantment fails and you lose the scroll and possibly the equipment as well. Magic elixirs and blessed magic elixirs, craftable also at Brynn's, can be added to the pot to increase the chance of a successful enchantment. Enchant runes prevent equipment destruction but are wasted on rank 8 enchantments or worse since those won't destroy equipment.
  • Material Synthesis - Applies to level 90+ weapons and armor, though it won't matter until you start obtaining level 105+ gear. Every piece of equipment requires an "Essence" and one or more "Legendary" components to craft that have their own stats to level up. This is an expensive process that takes a variety of rare materials that are hard to get.
  • Power Infusion - Applies to weapons, armor, and jewelry. In exchange for some kind of element stone and some AP, you can grant a random "bonus" to a piece of equipment. Bonus is in scare quotes because the bonus can reduce a stat. On the plus side, the bonus is the only bad thing that can happen to your gear. Events will sometimes give away "Videk's Safeguards," which will negate bad rolls.
I'm not going to lie: most of this stuff will drive you fucknuts unless you're wealthy and enjoy wasting your money. Try saving up to buy pre-upgraded gear from other players, or at least work the events for rewards that defray the costs of upgrading.

PvP

There are several PvP modes available:
  • Duels - Fight other people on the party boat or in dungeons. Hardly anybody does this.
  • Deathmatch - Individual and group PvP. Rewards participants with Triumph Medals. Medals can be exchanged for PvP gear that's good if you like deathmatch. With the 'Vindictus Under Siege' update, Triumph medals can be exchanged for artifacts (special equipment that grant boosts or short-term buffs) and little weapon icons that show up next to your name.
  • Fruit Fight - Strips you of your gear and lets you smash fruit in a 2v2 arena. Rewards participants with Sports Day Trophies, which can be redeemed for a little fruit icon that shows up next to your name.
  • Siege Match - Two teams try to destroy the opposing team's guardian statue with bombs and catapult stones. Rewards with Triumph medals.
  • Mag Mell Arena - Two teams fight in a crappy MOBA. The gimmick here is that each player plays as a raid boss, not as their own character, so gear doesn't matter as much as knowing which bosses are good and which bosses suck poo poo to play as. Rewards with Mag Mell Tokens, which can be exchanged for a variety of upgrade materials and cosmetics.
All PvP in Vindictus is optional and consensual. No invading other peoples' raids, sorry. In fact, it's very much the case that this is not a game for griefing. You're expected to not only cooperate with pubbies, but to be polite towards them.

While PvP is optional, it is a good idea to find some way to get Triumph Medals to purchase artifacts. Artifacts aren't game-breaking but there are several that can make battles a lot easier. Notable artifacts include the Cat Statue (instant SP recovery, usable every 70-90 seconds), the Werewolf Paw (+20% to move and attack speed for 20-30 seconds), or the Succubus Fang (grants lifesteal for 20 seconds).

ArchWizard fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jan 24, 2023

Alder
Sep 24, 2013

Everyone forgot the most important item for S3 and now iron ores are worth more than Regina components at 180k each. You need 120 for a full set of Lvl 80 or 30 for a weapon :20bux:

And they fixed the lag.

Bakalakadaka
Sep 18, 2004

We need a gif of the bear decapitation/elf dismemberment because drat.

SO MUCH BLOOD

ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.


Bakalakadaka posted:

We need a gif of the bear decapitation/elf dismemberment because drat.

SO MUCH BLOOD
Last night I was doing a Ben Chenner run and I turned around to see a party member cut a bear in half and send the front half flying across the map, blood spraying out of it like a rocket.

I guess he found our onslaught to be UNBEARABLE.

So anyway: I really like the new Regina gear system. If you're not rich as balls, you can easily/cheaply wrangle up a set of purple feathers that don't let you enhance past +10 or enchant past rank 8. Even if you do find an orange feather later, you can spend some Godly mats to switch it into the piece of equipment you already have. Of course, you lose any improvements you had in the first place, so you might be better off selling your orange feathers anyway :v:

Bakalakadaka
Sep 18, 2004

ArchWizard posted:

Last night I was doing a Ben Chenner run and I turned around to see a party member cut a bear in half and send the front half flying across the map, blood spraying out of it like a rocket.

I guess he found our onslaught to be UNBEARABLE.

So anyway: I really like the new Regina gear system. If you're not rich as balls, you can easily/cheaply wrangle up a set of purple feathers that don't let you enhance past +10 or enchant past rank 8. Even if you do find an orange feather later, you can spend some Godly mats to switch it into the piece of equipment you already have. Of course, you lose any improvements you had in the first place, so you might be better off selling your orange feathers anyway :v:

This is my plan for my Arisha who's gear I sold for loads a money a few months before S3.

ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.


I need to correct my earlier self. I just checked the S3E1 announcement page and found out that replacing the feather or shards in a Regina item doesn't reset enchants or enhancement level. That's actually really generous.

Bakalakadaka
Sep 18, 2004

ArchWizard posted:

I need to correct my earlier self. I just checked the S3E1 announcement page and found out that replacing the feather or shards in a Regina item doesn't reset enchants or enhancement level. That's actually really generous.

It does replace it if you upgrade the level of it apparently though, like going from blue to purple. Not that it matters since it has to be orange to go past 10 anyway.

darkhand
Jan 18, 2010

This beard just won't do!
I haven't used the new system yet, but the cheapness of the older stuff has let me upgrade all my visible pieces for practically free. I had saved up a ton of junky dragon parts, they jumped up 100x over on release and I dumped them for millions.

ShadowMoo
Mar 13, 2011

by Shine
How horribly P2W is this Nexon game?

BI NOW GAY LATER
Jan 17, 2008

So people stop asking, the "Bi" in my username is a reference to my love for the two greatest collegiate sports programs in the world, the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Marshall Thundering Herd.

ShadowMoo posted:

How horribly P2W is this Nexon game?

Not much at all, especially with the latest round of updates.

Gwyrgyn Blood
Dec 17, 2002

Has the grind factor changed much in say, the last 2 years or so? Haven't played since before GW2 came out but I felt like this got pretty intensely grindy even by the 30's.

ShadowMoo
Mar 13, 2011

by Shine
Apparently I had 5k NX in my old account that expired. Lovely. Never seen an MMO put an expiration date on their currency.

Gwyrgyn Blood
Dec 17, 2002

ShadowMoo posted:

Apparently I had 5k NX in my old account that expired. Lovely. Never seen an MMO put an expiration date on their currency.

You are a fortunate person to have never played Wildstar.

E: Apparently they never went through with expiring Credd in that game? Initially they had said it would expire after 3 months but I guess they went back on that.

Gwyrgyn Blood fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jul 20, 2015

OnceIWasAnOstrich
Jul 22, 2006

Gwyrgyn Blood posted:

Has the grind factor changed much in say, the last 2 years or so? Haven't played since before GW2 came out but I felt like this got pretty intensely grindy even by the 30's.

They shortened all of the S1 boats significantly and dramatically increased the XP you get from the story missions and some side missions. The end result is that playing through the story and doing the easy, valuable side stories for S1 and S2 gets you up past level 80 without any additional grind.

edit: Almost all S1 boats, the castle levels are all still really long.

Gwyrgyn Blood
Dec 17, 2002

OnceIWasAnOstrich posted:

They shortened all of the S1 boats significantly and dramatically increased the XP you get from the story missions and some side missions. The end result is that playing through the story and doing the easy, valuable side stories for S1 and S2 gets you up past level 80 without any additional grind.

edit: Almost all S1 boats, the castle levels are all still really long.

That sounds really good. When I was playing last, basically I hit a point in the 30s where I would rapidly run out of level appropriate quests each level and so it was just raw grinding most of the time.

By 'shortened all of the boats' you mean the actual levels themselves got a lot shorter? I was trying to remember if there was any way to skip those boat introductions when entering/reentering dungeons or not. :v:

OnceIWasAnOstrich
Jul 22, 2006

Gwyrgyn Blood posted:

That sounds really good. When I was playing last, basically I hit a point in the 30s where I would rapidly run out of level appropriate quests each level and so it was just raw grinding most of the time.

By 'shortened all of the boats' you mean the actual levels themselves got a lot shorter? I was trying to remember if there was any way to skip those boat introductions when entering/reentering dungeons or not. :v:

They basically lopped off one loading screen from every boat, so that they have 2/3 sections instead of 3/4, and the generated maps are somewhat shorter as well. The introductions are still there afaik. The lull at the end of Ainle where people would have to grind Blood Prince forever to get to the next stories is pretty much gone, completely gone if you do side missions and hard mode/macha most of the time.

Also when you hit 20/30/40 there are the 20-person raids you can do 3x/week each that give a ton of experience and let you get a big boost that will take you over any xp lull that might be left.

darkhand
Jan 18, 2010

This beard just won't do!
Sometimes you'll even outlevel the boats before finishing all the episode. You don't run out of stories until about level 60s because you need levels or season2 boats will take a giant poo poo on you. But rocheste stories can get you pretty high if you do all the side stuff, and with the new newbie armor boxes you should be able to break into season2 really easy. The level 60 raids are pretty much the most fun anyways imo.

P2W is kinda goofy because as long as you don't die a ton no one really knows how awful you are. Season3 atk caps haven't changed at all; kraken still has the highest defense in the game. And with all the new weapons, the level 80 weapons are cheap as heck right now. I'm sure you could grind some money for someone's +10 weapon decently easy.

Enchanted armor is the real divider, but honestly I doubt most players have them. Even if you buy or grind the scroll, they have like 60% chance to fail, and they break your armor. It's a hosed up system, but not 100% necessary to care about.

darkhand fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jul 20, 2015

Bakalakadaka
Sep 18, 2004

You can play the game just fine without enchants and with minimal enhancement, plus you occasionally get free enchant/enhance stuff periodically. If you like the game enough to bother slogging through enchanting you will probably be willing to drop some dollars on runes and poo poo.

ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.


darkhand posted:

P2W is kinda goofy because as long as you don't die a ton no one really knows how awful you are. Season3 atk caps haven't changed at all; kraken still has the highest defense in the game. And with all the new weapons, the level 80 weapons are cheap as heck right now. I'm sure you could grind some money for someone's +10 weapon decently easy.
A thread on the official forums pointed out that a +10 purple Regina weapon (which is cheap) hits the attack cap as easily as a +10 orange Regina weapon.

ShadowMoo
Mar 13, 2011

by Shine
What's the main USA guild thats's active?

Bakalakadaka
Sep 18, 2004

ArchWizard posted:

A thread on the official forums pointed out that a +10 purple Regina weapon (which is cheap) hits the attack cap as easily as a +10 orange Regina weapon.

Worth nothing though that the orange weapons get higher crit/speed/bal and can actually go past 10 (rich people only zone). Although technically all you need to go past 10 is an orange feather.

Alder
Sep 24, 2013

Gwyrgyn Blood posted:

By 'shortened all of the boats' you mean the actual levels themselves got a lot shorter? I was trying to remember if there was any way to skip those boat introductions when entering/reentering dungeons or not. :v:

You can get to Lvl 70 (all raids open) in approx 3-5 days which is nice considering how long it took in the past even with story quests. The only time you probably will grind is for the final leg to Lvl 80-90 where everyone is at right now so you'll find people to farm exp with if necessary.

The only place that has annoyingly long maps are in S2 esp TD but fortunately people actually host boats right now.

Rule #1: Don't enhance/enchant unless this is the last thing. Pre-made is the way to go unless you enjoy failing back to back scrolls for each armor part.

ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.


Does anyone know if the stuff in the S3 preparedness package is tradeable yet? Or if the individual contents were ever meant to be tradeable?

Alder posted:

The only place that has annoyingly long maps are in S2 esp TD but fortunately people actually host boats right now.
The devs seem to have learned their lesson in time for S3. Ben Chenner is like a Season 2 dungeon with the backtracking stripped out and I'm quite pleased with it.

ShadowMoo posted:

What's the main USA guild thats's active?
There are no active guilds on West server. I mean, I'm active, but I'm the only actual member of diabetic dogs who plays. No idea what's happening on East.

ArchWizard fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jul 21, 2015

Alder
Sep 24, 2013

ArchWizard posted:

Does anyone know if the stuff in the S3 preparedness package is tradeable yet? Or if the individual contents were ever meant to be tradeable?

The closed package is tradeable b/t the same acc but the individual items are not. For example, I can't split the Inner and Hair coupons or +10 one.

Idk if it's just me but I lag a lot in the new maps vs some S2 raids. Great for mining godly ores though. Regina is OK but her I'm averaging 20-30 min each raid and that gets old fast. I'd rather run older raids and sell off the useless secondary mats.

ShadowMoo
Mar 13, 2011

by Shine
There any way I should be building my Lann? I'm kind of just putting in skills at randon.

Bakalakadaka
Sep 18, 2004

ShadowMoo posted:

There any way I should be building my Lann? I'm kind of just putting in skills at randon.

There isn't really a 'wrong' way to build your character in this game since there's a hard cap for your skills (I think it's about 180k AP total for Lann). That said, putting AP in your actual combat skills is always a good choice, especially since they're much cheaper than mastery skills. You also want to make sure you level up your armor and weapon proficiencies so you can use new poo poo as you level.

darkhand
Jan 18, 2010

This beard just won't do!
CRIT and gliding first imo.

ShadowMoo
Mar 13, 2011

by Shine
At around what level will I start to see other boats?

OnceIWasAnOstrich
Jul 22, 2006

ShadowMoo posted:

At around what level will I start to see other boats?

edit: Welp.

OnceIWasAnOstrich fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jul 22, 2015

Alder
Sep 24, 2013

ShadowMoo posted:

At around what level will I start to see other boats?

Don't be silly, Vin is the anti-social MMO until endgame. Then you can set-up boat reqs to meet more people who are into the game that much.

@OP: Time to update link to shippu's armory because he finally hosted his own site after all: http://vindictusmanual.com

ShadowMoo
Mar 13, 2011

by Shine
That doesn't bug me, mainly playing as a side game when I am at cap with skyforge and bored of XIV.

ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.


Alder posted:

Don't be silly, Vin is the anti-social MMO until endgame. Then you can set-up boat reqs to meet more people who are into the game that much.

@OP: Time to update link to shippu's armory because he finally hosted his own site after all: http://vindictusmanual.com
I have a link to Shippu's Armory? :confused:

Alder
Sep 24, 2013

ArchWizard posted:

I have a link to Shippu's Armory? :confused:

Yep, I submitted one a while back and time for new links.

BI NOW GAY LATER
Jan 17, 2008

So people stop asking, the "Bi" in my username is a reference to my love for the two greatest collegiate sports programs in the world, the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Marshall Thundering Herd.
Yeah the game is a billion times better than it was even a year ago.

Darke GBF
Dec 30, 2006

The cold never bothered me anyway~
I don't know when I played this last. All I know is I came back after over a year of not playing to a level 23 Fiona. With D level Meditation. :getin:

I had like 40,000 AP to spend when I logged in last night! Still have like 34k after buying most of what looked good. I only dicked around in one dungeon but drat the combat in this game is fun and exactly what I was looking for. I probably quit originally because of a combination of sucking and too much grind.

gwrtheyrn
Oct 21, 2010

AYYYE DEEEEE DUBBALYOO DA-NYAAAAAH!

Darke GBF posted:

I had like 40,000 AP to spend when I logged in last night! Still have like 34k after buying most of what looked good. I only dicked around in one dungeon but drat the combat in this game is fun and exactly what I was looking for. I probably quit originally because of a combination of sucking and too much grind.

Probably quit due to terrible lag too if it was still in the "too much grind" stage for lower levels

GaylordButts
Feb 19, 2009

Darke GBF posted:

I don't know when I played this last. All I know is I came back after over a year of not playing to a level 23 Fiona. With D level Meditation. :getin:

I had like 40,000 AP to spend when I logged in last night! Still have like 34k after buying most of what looked good. I only dicked around in one dungeon but drat the combat in this game is fun and exactly what I was looking for. I probably quit originally because of a combination of sucking and too much grind.

At 23 you would have been in the awful bits of Hoarfrost Hollow, the second and largely unchallenging tileset. They've made a couple passes on that part of the game to make it faster and less "the worst part of the game". If you do end up playing much more, you don't need to mess with completing all the items listed as "Season 1 sub-story" or something to that effect and are totally fine to just do main story stuff.

hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel
Is this a koreagame?

Its all animes and it has something called kraken like archeage?

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Darke GBF
Dec 30, 2006

The cold never bothered me anyway~

GaylordButts posted:

At 23 you would have been in the awful bits of Hoarfrost Hollow, the second and largely unchallenging tileset. They've made a couple passes on that part of the game to make it faster and less "the worst part of the game". If you do end up playing much more, you don't need to mess with completing all the items listed as "Season 1 sub-story" or something to that effect and are totally fine to just do main story stuff.

I can already see they made it a ton less grindy. Pretty much got an entire level out of a single quest in Ainle. Had a semi-hilarious bug where I did the quest where Ellis dies, then came back to town and talked to Ellis, who ran off to Ainle alone, and then immediately got called a murderer by Gwynn because Ellis died. Haha.

Right now I'm just kind of doing whatever quests I can find and seem to be appropriate for my level. It's fun.

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