Dragon Saga All Encompassing Guide

Dragon Saga All Encompassing Guide by Transcend

Hello.
I used to be a vet player, played in the original pre beta phases. I made a few guides back in the day, most of them really old (2 years approx). This guide is one of them. My guides were more complete, but I never thought of saving them. The point of this guide is to help populate the FAQ and Guide threads. Hopefully someone else will pick up this project. Cheers!

I decided to start this guide since I seem to have nothing to do for a little bit. Don’t expect it to look amazing like Charisma’s right off the bat, it’s going to start off as text blocks, and for this first update, a small block. >:

Introduction

This guide is basically to outline how to properly and, more importantly, efficiently farm gold/souls. It’s basically what I noticed, and how I farmed, over the betas I’ve played; what I believe to be the most efficient way of farming gold/souls. This guide will outline the best areas to farm at which level, when you should start farming and when you shouldn’t be, lastly, how to manage soul extracting and NPC selling.

Table of Contents

1) When to farm for gold/souls? When to train?
Extra: Getting Powders as well!
2) Where should I go at what levels?
3) So, I have the items, what should I extract and should I NPC?
5) Mini Enchanting/Soul Forcing Guide
Extra: Opinion on the 3 different types of set gears

A quick guideline

Mission Maps: Quickest way to level
Hidden Maps: Quickest way to get gold/souls, prerequisite for Chaos Realm maps. This is where you get DSS [Dark Soul Stones]. To get to Hidden Maps, you need to defeat 3 star or 4 star MMs [Mission Maps] and grab the scroll the boss drops. The drop rate seems to be 50%, and the boss only drops one, so don’t waste them! To go to the hidden maps, use the scroll to warp to the appropriate map you want to go to.
Chaos Realm: Quickest way to get powders (Mostly weapon). This is where you get Chaos sets, they are alright.

To get to the Chaos Realm, go to any of the Hidden maps

One

So when should a player begin farming in between training? Well, the first 33 levels should be dedicated to training. Why is this? This is because the first 33 levels have easy and straight forward 4 star Missions that you can attend. You want to make use of this while you can, because after Artis (you should stop going to Artis at 33, the exp isn’t that great after this level) is Night Lord and Atoo.

Both Night Lord and Atoo have threee things in common, the mission map there is NOT straightforward, you have to run around dodging obstacles or just run a huge map, that is not efficient for leveling. The worst part is, there are very few creeps compared to the previous 4 star missions, very few (no more than 30 each stage, whilst the previous 4 star missions have 40+ every time). One would argue that you can head to Hookah/Alvida Chaos, but that requires you to go to hidden, which is what I’ll incorporate into my guide further in. Also, the first 33 levels don’t require you to use up a lot of souls/gold.

That’s for normal leveling, when to fit in Chaos Mission grinding? Well this is simple, every time you have a party of 4 ready and the correct # of DSS [Devil Soul Stones]. Do NOT go to the Chaos MMs (Mission Maps) thinking there will be people waiting, most likely there wont be. Personally, I believe is that DO has very nicely melded grinding and farming together, creating a nice flow and transition between the two. If you manage the equip drops properly, I don’t think there will be a need to farm while having the proper amount of DSS. When you mission you get gold/souls via equips and when you’re farming for DSS you are getting gold/souls and when you reach Chaos MMs you are also getting gold/souls. Basically, whenever you’re doing anything related to training, you’re getting a good gold/soul flow. Though, you have to remember if you’re going to go crazy with enchanting/increasing soul force, normal amounts of grinding/farming wont be enough for you. Unless you incorporate cash shop Safety Cards!

When you first start out, after reaching level 32-33 (your discretion, if you haven’t found your weapon/gear, I recommend staying till’ 33, if you STILL don’t have it, you can just Chaos Hookah with the DSS you get from the farming.), for efficient farming, you should be going to Bandit’s Hideout. Now now, before anyone starts saying ‘Why Bandit’s hideout if I can deal with Wrath?’ This is because, if you’re closer to the recommended level, you can kill the mobs much faster. Faster killing = quicker you get your drops/gold, and DSS.

Five ‘ My Mini Enchanting/Soul Forcing Guide

Well, this is basically the mechanics.

Enchanting

From +1 to +4, it is fairly high percentile of succeeding and has no consequences when failed. +1 and +2 is 100% from what I’ve experienced. +3 and +4 is around 80-85%, though I’ve been unlucky and failed like 6 times in a row going from +3 to +4, most of the other times required very little tries. After +4, if you fail trying to get to +5, your previous enchantments will reset. From personal experience, the percentage is something like this. +5 and +6 are about 70%, I haven’t gotten many things to +7 and +8, but it seemed to me that it would be around 50-60%ish.

+1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 +12 +13 +14 +15
%% 100 ~85 ~70 ~50-60 ?? ?? ?? ~1
Glow None Orange Blue ?? ??
$$ Will link to a different table in our very own THQ localized database!

Note: The glow row is only for weapons.

I would like to assume that the level of an item does not change the percentile, and if it does, it’s not a lot. So with basic logic, it is best to upgrade your equipment only up to +4 if you only have decent gear and are at your upper 3x gear; since this is around the beginning of when you will be using your gear for a longer period of time. However, if you find something nice, like a special/artifact gear with good stats, I would go up to +6-8, depending on your level. One should not go up to +9-15 unless you’re really up there in levels or find something of legendary class.

Why is this? +9-15 is extraordinarily hard to get to, unless you’re using protection cards, and when we’re talking weapon, even then it’s hard (because weapon powders drop at like, 1/5th of the rate of armor powders). If you think about it, if you fail ONCE, you go all the way back to +0. Getting to +9-15 would be very costly, and is not worth it unless it’s a item you’ll be using for a long while. legendary is the highest of the soul class levels, it can not get any better, so naturally it isn’t a bad idea to keep trying for it; just make sure you have more powders to pump it back up to at least +4 if it fails. Also a legendary class equipment would most likely be better than the next sets upgraded/special equipment, so it’s not a bad idea to upgrade it at all.

However, to be honest, personally I wouldn’t go to the +9-15 range unless it’s armor. Armor powders are easier to come by, so you can push it back up easier. When it comes to weapons, weapon powders are much harder to come by, and cost much more. So I wouldn’t touch the +9-15 range unless I have Protection Cards. When you’re at +12-15, I think I’d use protection cards, regardless of what type of equipment it is, whether armor or weapon. One would be losing just too much at that point.

To get ‘fast’ powders, without buying, is to chaos farm.

Lastly, do not forget! Nicely enchanted equipment gets your money back and more! When selling your amazingly enchanted equipment, factor in the original price of the equipment, powders and the cost to upgrade, but most importantly, the luck it involves to enchant equipment! (Sexy Farrel Gloves are just mega $$$, considering it gives 4 different stats, and If you legendary it, you get 8 in total, totally offsets the terrible armor. If it’s enchanted well, it’ll be worth a lot more than you imagine)

Soul Forcing

Extra ‘ The 3 different set equipments

Personally, I find that each set is good for different situations and play styles. People whined about Chaos sets, but they aren’t that bad. Here’s my general guideline.

[Normal Set] – The normal set is good for PvE and alright for PvP.
[Challenge Point Set] – The Challenge Point Set is good for PvP and GvG, not so much PvE. (Note: You get this set by playing PvP matches to get Challenge Points, go figure on the stats)
[Chaos Set] – The Chaos set is good for both, but doesn’t excel better than either of the two previously mentioned sets. So the Chaos set is good for a general set for both PvE and PvP purposes.

To put it in a table for easy ranking’

Note: PvE is Player versus Environment, so mobs. PvP is Player versus Player, usually is the general reference for all amounts of player versus player (from 1v1 to 5v5). GvG is Group versus Group, this term is used to show that it is usually more than one player versus another, usually 3v3 to 5v5. Any comments on Emporium War effectiveness is unknown as of now, since I have yet to personally experience it.

Set Type Normal Challenge Point Chaos
PvE 1 3 2
PvP 1 3 2
GvG 3 1 2
Emporium War 3? 1? 2?

Now now, why the rankings I did? Firstly, PvE. The challenge point sets boosts things like mana and hp, survivability so to speak, this is not needed against weakly mobs, so it’s waste of stats. Chaos gives a mix of both innate stats (Agi, Str, Int and Health) and survivability, from what I’ve seen, so it’s alright for PvE (great thing about the Chaos set is that it gives a large boost to your best base stat). The normal set is mostly a innate stat booster, so naturally it’s best for quick killing of mobs, farming and grinding, that is why I believe it’s best for PvE.

PvP. 1 versus 1 or 2 versus 2 is what I mean here by PvP. The survivability of the Challenge Point set doesn’t really sink in yet, since it’s only one on one or two on two, and when it’s 2v2 it’s still most likely still being 1 on 1. So what do we want in a heads on match? Quick and hard punches’, surviving isn’t the most important factor here yet, it’s to see who kills who the fastest. So the Normal set still has the most sought after stats, Chaos being the middle set, is still second.

GvG. 3 versus 3 to 5 versus 5 are what I mean here by GvG. Finally, the tables have turned on the Normal set. Hitting hard and quick is still important, but not the most important anymore. If you don’t have the survivability aspects to your equipment now, you may die too fast to be helpful to your team. For some classes, the problem is the actual surviving, for other classes is their mana pool, since with no mana they’re useless and might as well die anyway (lolsins). The Challenge Set allows you to survive long enough to be useful in the entire GvG fight. There will be situations where it ends up being 1v2 or 1v3, and you’re going to be glad you have extra survivability to take them on and hopefully skill your way to a close win.

Emporium War. This is referring to the large scale clan wars. Since I haven’t been in any yet, IAH was the only server to have it and I didn’t Beta there, I’m not sure, but I’m assuming it closer resembles GvG, where survivability is important. However, at this point, after experiencing it, I may put in Chaos set as the best for this type of match. Why? This is because from what I’ve seen and heard, survivability is important and hitting hard as well, this is because you need to survive assaults but also need to dish out damage to the opposing fortress’. Also the faster you blitz through the opponent, the more time you have to dish out damage to the fortress and relieve pressure on your side. However, this is speculation for now, I’m assuming I’m not too far from the proper ranking, don’t expect the Normal set to be the best here.

Note: Remember, that was just a general guideline and my own personal opinion. The results will vary depending on play style along with your class.

Conclusion

This was originally supposed to be a gold/soul guide, and turned out to branch into other aspects of the game. Eventually a lot of the information here will be thrown into the database I plan on creating with a few other forum members. Just shows how much I like to type, so come chat with me. :)

Happy farming and grinding!