Perfect World Beginner Guide Part 1

Hello! Welcome to Dreamscaper's Beginner Guide to Perfect World! This is part 1 of this guide series, which will explain the basics of the game, such as classes, refining, engraving, guilds, events, and more! A note: this is for complete beginners! Feel free to comment and suggest tips and tricks! People have different ways of starting so these will just be some tips and pathways I wish I knew before I started!

Which Class to Choose / Best Classes in PWM
Okay, we all have heard the phrase: "just play what you like best" when choosing classes in an RPG. And to a certain extent, that's true. However, some players who spend less/are F2P, or want to achieve a certain goal in game might find it helpful to consider the expensiveness and utility of a class first.

Assassin
First off, consider how much you are willing to spend. While this may change as you play, it will inevitably affect your choices throughout the game. For example, assassins and vulpines are extremely expensive classes to play. If you are a F2P assassin, you'll fall into the sad cycle of dying to bosses because you are close ranged, trying to assassinate the cleric or damage dealer of another team only to be bursted down because you are squishy and do not have enough damage, etc. On the other hand, if you are a big spender, well, let's just say 1v5s and team carries are in your sights. Assassins are hard to lock down and have high damage potential, but they are close range and need to stay on top of their enemies to deal damage. They are still very good in PVP, but are not the kings of PVP now that the meta has shifted.

Vulpines
Similarly, vulpines are an expensive class because the strongest pets such as Hercules and the blue phoenix pretty much requires you to spend money. There is also competition with normal pet captures which requires you to be strong, or to have strong friends. If you are f2p or a low spender that cannot get hercules or phoenix immediately, you need to have a strong party to fight over golden pets which only spawn every 2/4 days. Vulpines are gender locked as females and have a human form and a cat form. They are one of the prettiest classes in Perfect World Mobile and are currently very strong in the meta, providing stuns, damage reduction and tank potential if you have hercules, and high damage potential. They also have a skill that prevents them from being one shotted. Hercules can be achievable f2P by collecting 20 chaos essences, but it will take a long time and a lot of luck. Here is a vulpine guide.

Archer
The archer is a great dps class who primarily focuses on single target dmg. He is a pretty easy class to learn and excels in ranged battles. I know the infographic says he's highly difficult to play, but I think compared to other DPS classes he's pretty straightforward. Sage archers are one of the most powerful classes in game, being able to snipe down carries from far above. However, sage archer is best when you whale. The top 2 players in US 40 are both sage archers, and they are the best dps class for pve and pvp if you are a whale. Since there is a lot of competition within the archer class, it's hard to shine if you are f2p. A class's rare skills also determines their f2p scale, and a sage archer's rares are pretty necessary, compared to Souls hunter rares or cleric rares. However, there is some debate about whether archers are more for f2p or whales, as archers do require less br to do higher damage (but so do assassins and they are 100% a whale class). Finally, archers are gender locked as males.



Wizard
Wizards are masters of AOE, excelling in PVE, especially monster massacre. Even in PVP, their meteors are invaluable, providing huge Aoe damage and a long cc. They also have a movement ability to get out of sticky situations. Wizards aren't incredibly difficult to play, but they need to prioritize rare stats like cast speed because most of their skills need to charge. Spending on a wizard may not be as cost effective as an assassin or an archer, but wizards can be hard to kill because of their movement ability. They are also not gender locked.

Blademaster
Blademasters are close ranged dps with a range of weapons and cc. They are quite difficult to play because they are not exactly meta right now and you need to learn to use both their dual axes and spear skills. They are not meta because magic users counter them and vulpines and wizards have become stronger. I put them as closer to f2p because there are less blademasters, so less competition for skills and resources, they have lots of ccs which can ensure longer survival against whales. I would suggest Blademasters for lower spenders who are more interested in PVP, as in PVE BMs suffer from lower damage and their close range.

Soul Hunter
Soul hunter is one of the best F2P DPS classes. They are quite difficult to play because you need to collect souls and know which ability to enhance with souls. They are f2p friendly because 1) their rare skills aren't as necessary as the rare skills of other classes and 2) they can revive themselves rather than relying on a cleric or using tears of red. They also have some sustain as they have life drain from their chain. Soul hunters are medium range, so it can be harder staying on your opponents, especially if they are an archer or a wiz. Sage soul hunters played by whales are also very powerful in PVE.

Cleric (Healer)
The cleric is my personal favorite, though I am deeply biased. She is needed in every party, so you can afford to have lower br than the other dps. She is also one of the easier classes to learn and play. However, it can be highly stressful because if you die early and no one can revive you, as your party will most likely need to start again. So you need to protect yourself while healing the party. Do not auto if your br is lower than the dungeon requirement. If you like to auto, cleric may not be the class for you because major healing skills like regenerate do not activate on auto, and dodging is pretty important. Here is a quick cleric guide. Another thing to consider is that while you are needed in every party, only one of you is needed. So if a party already has a stronger cleric, they usually won't add you unless they really need people to join. Yes you can go demon cleric but your damage potential is lower than other DPS classes (though your single target is pretty good). You can build a demon cleric that only focuses on damage, but it will be pretty expensive. The cost rises even more if you are building both sage and cleric, as sage focuses on survivability stats like tenacity, evasion, crit res, etc, while demon focuses on hit, viciousness, etc. Still, you do share matk and mcrit. There are many clerics though so cleric skills are usually more expensive that the skills of other classes, especially sage cleric skills.

Barbarian (Tank)
Finally, we come to the tank, the best F2P and the class everyone needs. Yes, clerics are similarly needed but there has always been more clerics than tanks. You are the class that every party needs, even if you are lower br. You can actually stand a chance of not being immediately one shotted by whales. There are some mechanics you have to learn such as knowing how to interrupt a boss's skill, drawing aggro, using turtle at the right time, locking down a threat during PVP, etc. You also don't deal much damage compared to other dps classes or even the demon cleric. However, you are essential in parties, territory war as you need to pull ballistas, and guild/supreme leagues to defend a captured base. Do note that your human form is a tiger headed/panda headed person, and your tiger form is, well, a tiger. So your aesthetic preferences may change your perspective of the classes.

My F2P ranking (in terms of best F2p to p2w):


 * 1) Tank
 * 2) Cleric
 * 3) Soul Hunter
 * 4) Wizard / BM
 * 5) Archer
 * 6) Vulpine
 * 7) Assassin

Let me know your opinions on each class!

Quests
The beginning of the game is pretty straightforward. Try to join the newest server because you can catch up more easily. Just follow the main quests and learn your skills. Quests are not restricted by the max daily exp bar, so do them after events if you want to level up faster.

Main quests - self explanatory

Cultivation quests - to raise your cultivation level (do them first)

Side quests

Legendary quests - lots of exp gained

Hidden quests - sometimes unlocked if you emote near someone (such as action: Greet) or talk to an npc with a yellow checkmark above their heads. I'm working on a guide about how to unlock all hidden quests. These give you 7D rides, costumes, aerogear, emotes, and more.

Refining
Refining is the best way to raise your br, but also the riskiest. Since this is a beginner guide and everyone has different ways of refining, I'll just suggest some:

You can refine to 3 without fear, then try to reach all refine 5s. You can reach refine 7 without any blessing or elysium stones. After that use blessing stones, but from 9-10 you can use elysium stones. 10+ onwards is debatable, with some preferring elysium stones and others relying on Blessing stone IIs. Blessing stones makes sure your refines don't drop if they fail, while elysium stones increases the chance of success but your refine will go down if you fail. You can only choose 1 to use each time. You gain refine rate if you fail.

Soulstones
Soulstones are another way to increase your br quickly. Lv1 and 2 soulstones are fairly easy to get. To increase soulstone brs quickly, you should go to Jaxon everyday and buy his cheap lv 4 soulstones. He appears every 3 hours with a server wide message starting at 9am server time all the way to 9pm. Each lv 4 soulstone costs 680 silver ingots. Even if you can't use the soulstone, you can combine it in crucible with a tabula rasa (2 bound ingots) to get a random lv 4 soulstone which you may need. Or you could sell that soulstone in the market for a few extra silver.

Try to reach all lv 5 soulstones as soon as you can and unlock the lv 5 resonance. You'll also be able to equip essence scales after all three soulstones on one equipment have a total level of 15 (e.g. 5 5 5 or 6 4 5), which increases your br. I love soulstones and engravings, which we will talk about next, because they are guaranteed br and cannot fail.

Engravings and Enchantments
Engravings are another guaranteed way to raise your br. Each equipment has 2 engravings open and you can level them up. Get engravings by running maps, doing heavenfall tower and buying engravings from the tower shop, or just buying them with silver. Try to level them equally, but you can prioritize your weapon slightly more. I suggest using silver ingots to level these as soon as possible to lv 20, as you will be able to unlock enchantments.

Enchantments provide various bonuses to your weapons and depend slightly on luck. Try using tier III and II enchantments only, and combine your tier I and later tier II enchantments in crucible. They have a possibility of becoming a higher tiered enchantment, or remaining the same. More specifically, three tier I enchantments in the crucible could become a tier II/III enchantment, but will most likely stay a tier I enchantment. Three tier II enchantments in the crucible could become a tier III enchantment, but will most likely stay a tier II enchantment.

Focus:

Refines all to +7

Engravings all to +10

Soulstones all to +5

Refines all to +10 / Engravings all to +20

Try focusing on one system at a time, but doing all your dailies such as heavenfall tower, guild quests, etc will ensure you improve on each everyday (except for the ficky refine system some days you'll drop in br because of them).

Other tips

 * 1) Join a guild as soon as possible, your life skills (primary way of earning gold coins), guild training, and major events are all locked until you join a guild.
 * 2) Sometimes you may want to stay at a chokepoint level, like lv 79, to accumulate spirit for leveling skills.
 * 3) Find a group to run dailies with.
 * 4) If you want to spend money, always buy the daily packs first rather than purely recharging gold ingots.
 * 5) Lastly, have fun!!