Neo Steam Online Gadgeteer’s Guide

Neo Steam Online Gadgeteer’s Guide by SuparBrad

The gadgeteer is a more flexible class than most, offering fairly decent attack and some defense, but it requires some planning. You just can’t tank like some classes and run forward into mobs, this is a death wish in most cases. A good gadget will hang back and try firing from a distance until the enemy closes in, baiting monsters away from the group one by one. Gadgets can focus on several different skill builds, becoming a PvP destroyer, a more laid back crafter, occasional support, or any combination of these. Just be sure to figure out what you want ahead of time, you have only so long to experiment!

The Pom is the most common choice for race selection, as they have a great bonus to STR and CON over all other classes, can equip what they craft at lower levels, and on top of that, it’s said they get more mats back from failed crafts. However you may want to look to other classes for their racial skills and just for variety. Humans atk speed increase makes a huge difference on the slow guns, and the decreased prices from shops can save money that can go to other things, llike buying materials. Elves are another interesting choice, more than most think, as the decreased aggro radius can help you prevent being attacked by a group, and the run speed can help in escaping any situation where you do attract attention, making them great snipers. Taxns and Lyells are another to think about, as the increased NS capacity can help you craft more or use your cores more frequently.

Another tip I’d like to throw in here before skills is your choice of weapons, use a gun! It will give you some distance between foes and allow you to use your best skills, plus you can actually craft guns, giving you control over how well your weapon turns out.

Sword Skills (Use: None!)
I’m not even going into detail here, use sword skills at first before you get class change, until you get yourself a solid gun, then reset your skills and never touch them. They’re both weak and there are much better skills.

Shield Skills
Spirit Screen – (Use: PvP) This skill basically makes an attack to you fail, perhaps more than one. This can be useful for a PvP build in thwarting an enemy who opens with a powerful attack. At high levels it can succeed several times in a row, making it a useful defense buff. Start off putting 1-3 points into it so you can use it and max it late in the game.
Needle Counter – (Use: None!) This is best used with a shield, which you’d only use with a sword, don’t bother.

Gun Skills
(All these skills require bullets, don’t forget to keep stocked up!)
Tech Volley – (Use: None) The basic low power spam skill, get this one if you like mashing buttons, I prefer just attacking normally. It doesn’t stun like the Artificers. Max it if you use it to do max damage.
Heal Volley – (Use: Support) This will cure debuffs and some health, but not very much. It can be used on anyone, so this can make you a decent backup healer. I tried it to level 6 and it wasn’t healing enough to be useful during battle, but if you get away, it can be spammed to regain health faster than the usual rate, since bullets are cheaper than pots, but i’d really mainly get it if you don’t solo often. Maxing is necessary to make sure you can heal those at your level.
Poison Shot – (Use: Everything!) Step one of the Gadgeteers one-two punch, this will poison your opponent from a distance. Regardless of your build, this is a must have for attacking. Keep it maxed to poison opponents at your level.
Detect Shot – (Use: PvP/Support) Only useful in PvP situations, since it thwarts nightstalkers camo and adds slow. This can make you a real hero in those situations, but it will also eat up a slot where something else can be used, so use it if you’re making a PvP build and not if you intend to solo. Maxing is useful but not necessary until late game, as not all stalkers max thier cloaking skill.
Malign Shot – (Use: Everything!) The second part of the one-two punch, Malign is a close range attack that hits hard, even harder on poisoned foes. The strategy here is to hit a foe with Poison, then once they come up to attack, Malign them for great damage. Maxing is suggested, but do so after Poison, as it only increases damage from leveling up.
Burst Shot – (Use: Everything) This is another skill that I’d suggest not missing out on. It does more damage for any foe with less than 50 percent health. If a foe isn’t dead from Poison/Malign, this should finish them off nicely. Max it for better damage.

Craft Skills
Gizmology (Use: Crafting) The basic crafting skill for this class, it allows you to build Guns/Bows, Steam Tanks, most Accessories, and most importantly, Cores! A higher Giz level can also potentially give better bonuses to the weapons and accessories you build, but the chances of success only increase with your character’s level, so even if you’re a crafter build, level up as much as possible!
Plant Explosives (Use: ???) I’ll just skip an opinion on this one since I haven’t used it and can’t comment on how it works, but a bomb is set that hits an area so this is pretty much the only real AoE attack for this class.
Bolster (Use: The only buff) Bolster is a great attack buff and a skill you probably shoulldn’t miss. Max it last but keep it up whenever possible, as any extra attack helps.
Pulse Engine (Use: Robots) This skill will do damage better damage to an opponent under 10 percent and any mechanical foe under 20 percent health. This makes it fairly useless, there aren’t a whole lot of mechanical enemies in Elerd and most foes under 10 percent don’t need another special to kill it. Use Burst instead.
Electrify (Use: Everything) This skill will slow an opponent. You may want to pass this one for something else, but it can come in handy with PvP opponents trying to run off and heal, and it makes a great opening move for the Poison/Malign combo. A slowed opponent will take longer to get to you, letting you fire away with your gun and letting the poison eat away at it until it gets close enough to attack with Malign. Keep it maxed if you use it, as it is a debuff and needs to be leveled.
Dismantle (Use: Crafting) This allows you to take apart any equipment you can build with crafting. You can’t take apart things at a higher crafting level than your giz, and you can’t take apart things that Artificers can build. It’s great for getting materials, but not as useful as Artificers Melt skill, as weapons/armor are more plentiful and often cheaper. You can also use this skill to redo equips that didn’t come out as well as they could. If you’re a crafter, you should get this skill and keep it at least as high as your Giz skill
Siege Pylon – (Use: RVR) This skill will allow you to craft special attack pylons for use in RvR. Only the crafter can set them up, but they can be useful for deterring foes when you don’t have the materials to make a full siege engine. Max it if you have an interest in RvR and would like to throw powerful cannons all over the place.
Siege Engine – (Use: RVR) This skill allows you to make siege engines, the large mechanical creatures that kill all over RvR. Unlike pylons, ANYONE can pilot a siege engine, and will get a special title of Siege Engine Fanatic from it. Piloting the devices are pretty expensive, but once the model is made, it won’t expire, so put points into the skill and make some models for your friends or guildmates to share. Currently, the SP models can’t be made, so no need to push it past 7 yet.

Now since you have the ability to build cores, you’ll surely want to build and equip yourself with some, right? First of all, you need a socketed weapon and socketed armor to put them in, look for items with a green color and the word “socket” in the corner. Once that’s done, it’s up to you which skills fit you best.
Head armor uses cores which prevent statuses. Keep in mind that those are ACTIVE buffs, so use the core skill whenever you need it. Most people prefer stun def, but root may also be good for a gadget, as getting stuck in one spot can be deadly.
Upper armor cores offer defensive style buffs, and opinions differ as to which is best. Bulwarks offer a basic def boost for a short period, and demon armor will actually heal you a bit each time you’re hit. There isn’t one for every level of core though, so it may be best to use whichever one of the two is closest to your appropriate level. I wouldn’t bother with steel/beast cores, your opponents can fit into both those categories.
Glove cores are a no brainer here, Steel Intake Valves will give you extra gold and some NS back, preventing your steam tank from running low at least from shooting your gun and even filling your tank up a bit over time. Don’t bother with rusty intakes, it just isn’t worth the spot. Intakes are also passive skills, so you don’t have to “use” them.
Lower Armor is mostly best used for Energy Vessels, which when used will give you an HP boost, keeping you alive for longer and increasing the chance of a pet heal since you’ll critical at higher HP. Another good choice at higher levels is Pyrrhic Shell, which will give you another chance for high defense while the upper armor cools.
Boots, I’ve never even used cores for. The inhibitors can possibly ability lock your foes, but the feedback i’ve gotten is that they don’t succeed very often, eating your steam for nothing.
As far as Weapons are concerned, an ideal choice is Power/Impact/Nitro Storms. Your AoE skills as a gadget are very limited, and this will bail you out if you get surrounded, or just give you an occasional extra punch if you want to lure weaker mobs together. A Shock core however may come in more handy in certain situations, like PvP or battling bosses.

Getting the stones for crafting!
Lesser Energy Stones – Easy enough to get, but you’ll want several stacks of them. They can be mined in the RvR battleground near your country’s entrance, although you need a fairly high level miner to get more than one at a time (Lvl 6 gives 4 on average to a mach class).
Energy Stones – Best found within the RvR dungeons. They are hidden within chests, dropped by sub bosses and also from the robots you run into on occasion, which ONLY a mach class can loot. Get a party together and make as many runs into these special dungeons as possible.
Greater Energy Stones – The most difficult to get. The most reliable method is to kill the 9x boss inside the RvR dungeon, but if you’re too underleveled for this, they are also given once in awhile during guild appraisal.

Using the Pylons/Engines
There are 3 different models and 2 different types to choose from for both pylons and engines.
AT models – The easiest models, with high attack but low defense.
DF models – The midrange models, adding high def but lowering attack some.
SP models – The hardest models of all to make, providing both attack AND defense

Firebrand/Thunderbolt – Troop specialists, use these against other players
Water Cannon/Guardian – Machine specialists, use these against other engines and pylons.

Be sure to make the right weapon for the job, using a troop specialist against a machine or vice versa is pointless. Don’t bother with walls or structures, these are the specialty of the artificer’s Rock Crusher.

Crafting information
Siege Pylon
Guardian AT (Lvl2)
1000NS / 1 Energy Stone / 89 Lesser Stone

Guardian DF (Lvl3)
1500NS / 2 Energy Stone / 98 Lesser Stone

Thunderbolt AT (Lvl4)
2000NS / 1 Energy Stone / 89 Lesser Stone

Thunderbolt DF (Lvl5)
2500NS / 2 Energy Stone / 98 Lesser Stone

Guardian SP (Lvl6)
3000NS / 5 Energy Stone / 76 Lesser Stone

Thunderbolt SP (Lvl8)
4000NS / 5 Energy Stone / 76 Lesser Stone

9-10?

Siege Engine
Firebrand AT (Lvl2)
2000NS / 4 Greater Stone / 7 Energy Stone / 86 Lesser Stone

Water Can AT (Lvl4)
4000NS / 9 Greater Stone / 5 Energy Stone / 55 Lesser Stone

Firebrand DF (Lvl5)
5000NS / 11 Greater Stone / 9 Energy Stone / 12 Lesser Stone

Water Can DF (Lvl7)
7000NS / 16 Greater Stone / 7 Energy Stone / 72 Lesser Stone

9-10?
SP engines unavailable

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