How to do your First Climb on a 20fg BudgetI. PrefaceWell, you’ve made a great choice with LS. I can write volumes on how this simple flash game is the most addictive & enjoyable game you’ll ever play. However, this isn’t the objective of this guide. After buying your gear, make sure you also read
How to Make FG in LS as this will help fund upgrades on gear for future climbs.
Now 20fg isn’t much to come up with if you’re playing d2 or any other game on this site. This very small investment will give you enough of a boost to make the first climb manageable while still keeping the initial investment low. Chances are that after you complete this first climb, you’ll have gathered enough fg from drops to make some substantial upgrades for the next one.
II. What Character To Choose?There is no “Best Character”. However, on a limited budget, there are ones that make more obvious choices. The first thing you need to ask yourself is: “Do I enjoy attacking or healing more?” Taking that into consideration, I would choose either a Fighter for Melee or a Guardian for Heals. Let me give a breakdown of why I think what I do. Also, I’m including the ability chart I created below for quick reference and to more easily understand my choices.
Fighter- Weapons – Swords, Clubs, Axes, Longswords, Spears, Polearms
- Armors - All
- Charms - All
- Starting Stats – 50Str, 40Dex, 10Int, 50Vit
The differentiator on the fighter and why I make him the best choice is because of his abilities. Powerstrike and Bottomsup both charge with weapon. This is key. By placing all your ability points on your first climb into these abilities and maybe adding a single point or two into Retribution, you will be set for Catas/Solo. There is a good chance on your first climb that you won’t be able to find or remain in a cata the entire climb. As you will find that I don’t have any fg allocated into a heal charm, any abilities that charge on Heals at this point in time should not be added into.
Barbarian- Weapons – Sword, Club, Axe, Warhammer, Battleaxe, Polearm
- Armors – All
- Charms - All
- Starting Stats – 60Str, 25Dex, 5Int, Vit60
A great case can be made for choosing a Barb over a fighter. Up until recently, I’ve suggested Barb over fighter for newcomers on a budget. However, the abilities on a Fighter are superior imo. BottomsUp will give more amplification than Knockdown. And what swayed me the most is that Powerstrike charges on Weapon as opposed to Retribution on hits taken. This guide will suggest that you find and wear EE armors. Basically, the better the armor you get a hold of—the lower the usefulness of Retribution will become.
Rogue- Weapons – Sword, Club, Axe, Dagger, Staff, Spear
- Armors - Light & Med
- Charms - All
- Starting Stats – 30str, 60dex, 25Int, 35Vit
I’ll plainly state this: on a 20fg budget, you don’t want a class that has casting abilities. This is a great class if you’re going to cast & melee. However, you will need A LOT more fg to be proficient at this. Let’s ignore this class for now.
Magician- Weapons - Dagger, Staff
- Armor – Light
- Charms - All
- Starting Stats – 20Str, 50Dex, 60Int, 20Vit
If you cata, you’re going to be expected to double as a healer. If you solo, you’re going to need to do dmg. That being said, you’re going to have to buy 4 slots of items to climb. Also, when soloing, you’re going to get raped from having a lack of defense & life totals. Lastly, since we’re going to be using low end gear, mana is also going to be a problem early on and probably throughout the climb. Just trust me on this one, ignore mage if you’re only investing 20fg.
Guardian- Weapons – Club, Longsword, Warhammer, Battleaxe, Spear, Polearm
- Armor – Heavy
- Charms – Heal Types
- Starting Stats – 30Str, 10Dex, 55Int, 55Vit
The guardian has some phenomenal Healing Abilities. Even if you're forced to use subpar heal charms, these abilities will make up for any shortcomings. The biggest contribution a newcomer can make to a group is to be the healer as a guardian. Basically, by saving someone else with thousands of fg invested in gear from using actions as a healer instead attacking, you have that opportunity cost working in your favor! It is no surprise that groups are more likely to accept a newcomer as a guardian healer, but if you find yourself without a group it will be very challenging to level. This isn’t a problem if you climb multiple characters, but we’ll touch on that later.
III. What Weapons / Armors to Choose?I suggest a breakdown of items investment (1fg per unless otherwise noted) spent as follows:
Fighter FG Disbursement: - Weapons: Tier3, 5-10, 15-20, 25-30, 35-40, 45-50, (3fg)55
- Armors: Tier3, 10-15, 25-30, 35-45, (3fg)55
- Charms: Lvl 10-15, 25-35, (2fg)50-55
Guardian FG Disbursement:- Weapons: Lvl 10-20, 25-35, 40-55
- Armors: Tier3, 10-15, 25-30, 35-45, 55
- Main Slot Charm: Lvl 10-20, 25-35, 40-55
- Secondary Slot Charm: Tier3, 5-10, 15-20, 25-30, 35-40, 45-50, (3fg)55
Now that we know how to divvy up our Initial Investment, we got to track these items down. Below are some tricks to get the job done:
Quick Ways to Locate Starter Gear- Search the Marketplace
- When searching the marketplace, be sure check mark the box that states “Only Show Items I Can Use”.
Fighter Item Stats to Buy:- Choose the Highest Enhanced Effect damage Weapon you can see for each lvl range while ignoring Spears & Longswords. (This will allow us to maintain consistent Weapon Ratios) Note that it is fine to mix and match weapons. We just want the highest EE.
- For Armors, we again want the Highest Enhanced effect. Only buy: Leathers, Scales, Chains, & Plates. If all the EE is the same and you have a choice amongst the 4x, choose a medium armor (Leather/Scale).
- Lastly are the charms. Choose the highest Amount of +Str you can get your hands on. This is the 1 item that the lvl does not matter 1 bit. If you find a 30str lvl 20 and don’t see anything better in your price range at any high lvl, just use this till 71. Give yourself say 3 upgrades and spread them out in lvl req well.
Guardian Item Stats to Buy:- For Weapons, just buy +Heal Mastery items that you can wear throughout your climb.
- For Armors, buy +Heal Mastery for higher heals or +Enhanced Effect will help your tanking. +Enhanced Effect is probably preferable, but either or is fine as both are VERY helpful.
- For Main Slotted Charms, simply buy +Heal Mastery. Do you see a pattern here?!?
- For Secondary Slotted Charms, buy the highest +Enhanced Effect Heal Type Charm you can find. For now, don’t be so concerned about matching all your charms. It’s more important now to purchase a 70ee item over a 30ee item that matches your heal type preference.
IV. How Do I Stat My Points?This is ofc open to debate. However, I’m going to give you my opinion that should serve as a solid starting spot and you can tweak it later to your liking. Again, make sure you understand the weapon Ratios
Here to make sense on where you place your Str/Dex. However, my weapon choices above took out all the guesswork.
Fighter Stat Point Allocation- As we are wearing EE armors and will be hopefully contributing to the group climbs by tanking upfront, I suggest to place your first Points into Vitality until you have a base of 75. This will increase both your defense and Life totals. From there, just pump it into Str until MQ. We chose weapon types that make this manageable and is best for mixing and matching your weapons.
Guardian Stat Point Allocation- This is easy. If you got some EE armors and/or are tanking, get your +Vit to 75 and put the rest into +Int for higher Heals. Chances are you will be a tank as well. However, if you are not, then just stat all into +Int. Again, this is pretty straight forward.
V. Final Suggestions & ConsiderationsIf you followed this guide to a ‘T’ then you’re well on your way to a successful first climb in LS. Realize that this will be the most difficult climb you make in your Ladder Slasher career. Also, don’t get discouraged. You may find that if you’re not in a guild that finding groups to go 1-71 are difficult at times. Even if you find a group at lvl 1, you’ll may still hear the ‘Full’ remark as you join. Again, guilds have the advantage of premade games. Don’t take offense. Also, there is a good chance that you may be kicked from games. If you click your rear off constantly during the climb, then hopefully this can be reduced. However, just keep at it and don’t take offense if you do. As you climb more, your gear and profs will improve, and your positive demeanor will be remembered.
Lastly, it is good practice to play a variety of characters to better find cata games. Obviously, finding a Cata group will be easiest at lvl 1. However, if your group breaks up at lvl 35 and your guardian is unable to solo—then just make a new char! Also, always check back on these char ranges for games and look for groups in the
Catacomb Forum. Adhering to this advice of playing many characters will make your experience in LS much more positive.
Thanks for reading and Good Luck to you. For further questions, please ask in the
Ladder Slasher Mentoring Program or simple post questions in the main forum.
This post was edited by hapycmpr on Jul 26 2011 02:14pm