While the servers are still experiencing their woes, we thought we’d step out of the game and write down some early tips, hints, and so forth to help those of you getting ready to play Bless Online when the base game opens up on May 30th. Now, this list is not exhaustive, so be sure to add your own thoughts too!
TUTORIAL “SKILL MOUNTING”
In the tutorial, thanks to what we’re told is being fixed, a localization error means that the instructions in the tutorial about mounting your secondary skill chain is really unclear. Until the full localization is put in, just click the second skill on the top row (see below), click “Mount” and then select the 2nd bar. The way Bless combat works is that you have multiple stances, each with their own specific skills and uses. So while the wording may be miss-translated, the goal is the same. They want you to know how to mount those skills, and how to switch between them (default, ~). Side note: this means better skill descriptions are coming too.
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MOUNTS AND ENERGY
I saw a lot of people upset that their starter horse ran out of energy so fast. Bless doesn’t do a good job early on explaining that you can have dozens of mounts, up to 200 total eventually. The idea being that you’re going to use many different mounts, level them up, and feed them food to recharge energy when you absolutely need to. Once you get the taming green tutorial quest, you’ll get some free food, and plenty of taming scrolls to make it so you never really run out of mounts to use. Plus, the mount/pet energy food can be crafted, so expect to see plenty on the Marketplace (auctions) in time.
SPEND YOUR GEMS!
It’s not really telegraphed at all, but you’ll be severely handicapping your character unless you go into the skills page (K) and spend your various gems on improving skills. See above that you can actually change the bonuses of each skills with gems, from damage to other effects. But perhaps more importantly, you’ll want to make sure you mount your non-chain class skills (2nd tab) and spend gems on the Ability grid. This grid essentially adds hundreds of points of health, defense, and so forth. It can even improve your crafting speeds. When you have them, spend your gems!
GATHER EVERYTHING YOU SEE
When you hit your teens, you’ll eventually get a quest to unlock and pick your crafting professions. You’ll get one main (like armorsmithing) and one side (like alchemy or cooking). But each profession uses all sorts of materials, and what you do not need, you can sell on the marketplace. So stock up on gathering tools (they’re consumable, like GW2), and harvest EVERYTHING.
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HUNT AWAY, BRO
Like FFXIV, Bless has side quests that involve simply killing many of the same monster. Heck, even wild horses don’t get off cheap as there are hunting quests to slay them. While the main story and dungeons will give you a bulk of XP, the side quests and hunting quests add a good slew of XP, achievements, and more. So if you see a beast, try to kill it. You never know what it’ll lead to… likely more killing though, to be honest. The XP isn’t as good as the story questing, but every bit helps, and if you do it in a party, you’ll have a good time.
PARTY BENEFITS!
Use these! Even if you’re not near your party members, the Party Leader can select party benefits – extra XP, better gold drops, more harvesting items. The more people in your party, the better the perks. It’s really a nice little addition and reason to party up, even when you’re miles apart.
These are just a few of our early game hints for Bless Online. Got any sage advice of your own to share? Let us know!
