The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 1: Setting Up The Char

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*** UPDATE: Additional comments that developed from a lively discussion about the direction and goals of the project as well as the general approach can be found here. ***

Welcome to a new project, experiment, challenge or whatever you wanna call it. As someone who has played since BETA and build up a huge account over the time, nowadays my characters skip most of the content and gearing up steps. I level through invoking and once I decide to bring up another character, I will have enough Seal of the Elements on the account to buy the T1 gear right away, equip Rank 9s at least and make sure all Artifacts are Legendary and all Artifact gear at least epic. The character is instantly T2 ready.

It’s nice that my account provides such luxury, but during the last days I figured it would be quite interesting to approach the game from the perspective of a casual player, who let’s say just started playing with Module 6. How does it feel having only the stuff you actually farm and build up a character without the help of your mains? How long does it take until you are geared enough for T1/T2 and where do you get all the RPs from?

The Lowbie Setup
The Lowbie Setup

I originally planned to literally bring up a character from scratch, but soon realized I absolutely don’t want to play through 1-70 with another char ever again unless it’s a new class.
So I just took the least progressed char I have, which is a Soulbinder Warlock. She already has the Dread Ring campaign finished as well as parts of Icewind Dale, Sharandar and ToD, is a Metallic Ancestry Dragonborn, has an epic Lantern and Leadership 25. Admittedly, that’s not really starting from scratch, but I think it shouldn’t spoil the whole thing too much. I also decided to give the character 500k ADs, which is the equivalent of 10$ spent to start the game. That’s actually what I did back then and is not unreasonable.

I ended up with blue stuff that you can get by playing the leveling dungeons and Rank 5s. The char also has the epic cloak and the Artifact Off-Hand you get for getting to 70 and the SW Artifact. Additionally I bought a Plague Fire Enchantment, the Dragon Bone Weapon and level 70 Shirt and Pants.

My first takeaway from two hours today is that I am able to solo quests in Sharandar, but most definitely not in the Well of Dragons (or Icewind Dale I’d assume). I participated in a dragon run though. Overall I was surprised that my survivability was actually better than my DPS. I died a few times, but it wasn’t too frustrating. Short term I think it’s best running those dragons in WoD, get some RPs and hope for an Artifact Belt. Additionally I want to get some Fey Blessing Enchantments really quick and progress in the campaigns to get my Artifact Weapon. Long term, the goal is to run T1s. I already passed the 1.6k item level requirement, but I won’t dare to test her against Valindra, Malabog or Lostmauth. That would be a slaughter. I’m confident that I can get her to Rank 7s and enough gear in reasonable time, but that remains to be seen and I’m very intrigued how it’ll develop.

Welcome to the Lowbie Diaries, it should be fun!

j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

6 thoughts on “The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 1: Setting Up The Char

  • May 8, 2015 at 2:33 pm
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    Lowbie diaries in which the char has 500k AD an epic cloak that requires linu favors DR boons, got the dragon bone wep which scales and the epic shirt and pant.
    Yea nothing ‘lowbie’ about that more like making an alt, diary.

    • May 9, 2015 at 9:27 am
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      Yes, it’s not optimal, but as close as I can personally get.

    • May 10, 2015 at 1:25 pm
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      I agree.. when i first read the title i though “Cool.. this will be fun”. But after I realized you weren’t “really” starting over, decided I’ll pass on the rest of the articles in this series -> at this point it’s just another person creating an alt. Plenty of articles on that out there already

    • May 20, 2015 at 1:45 pm
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      lol, i’m a casual player and your “lowbie” is better outfitted than my year old lvl 60 GF. You have no clue what a casual player is.

  • May 11, 2015 at 4:00 pm
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    It’s seems like a “Live my life” project.
    I begin NW 1 month before mod 6. In mod 5, living as a new player was enjoyable, but since mod 6 hit us, it became a nightmare. Good luck without any help (such as well geared friend to run T1, because a new/ow player is now automaticaly exclude) to progress further.
    If you find tips to evolve with such a char, i’ll listen carefully.

  • May 13, 2015 at 4:46 am
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    You have leadership up to 25 already??

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