Guide: Albion Online as a free to play solo player
This is a fairly simple, straight to the point starter guide. This guide will cover mostly pvp/pve contents, and not focusing on crafting, gathering, islands and other premium related stuff. Welcome to Albion!
Character Creation
Albion is not the type of MMORPG that locks you onto a class, you can freely use anything you like. When ready, don't forget to check the "Play tutorial" button, we can abuse the tutorial island market to buy mules at low price and sell them on high price later on.
Gathering resources
Either way, I assume you have been traveled into the tutorial island, just follow the quests until the end, when you are asked to sail to the main island, this should cost you at least 10-15 minutes.
For starter, here are the list of all early weapons:
- Regular Bow
- Sword
- Fire staff
Bow
Use bow if you want a weapon that has high damage output and easy to use, this weapon is also focused on basic attacks and is good if paired with lifesteal.
Sword
Good sustain weapon, has high hp and good damage if piloted correctly. Typically you need to stick close all the time to the enemy to utilize it's peak ability and damage.
Fire staff
Staffs, typically has really high damage especially fire because it has overtime damage, but it's weakness is that you are very very squishy and easy to kill, not good for open world content, will shine on contents like corrupted dungeon (1v1).
Don't stress about it, you can change later at ANY time given, because low tier stuff prices are extremely low and most importantly this is Albion.
Pick sword for melee, bow for ranged basic attacks, staff for ranged focused skills.
Armors
DO NOT use plate armors period. No benefit will grant you for using plate armor as a solo player. It has high armor sure, but really low damage. It does not help you at any case winning.
Plate armors are used in situations where you play contents like ZvZ or any with teams. Plate armor can be used as a solo player only if you play Great Hammer or Tombhammer, it cost a lot of silver, cost alot of item power. Just don't use plate armor, waste of time.
Instead, you can always go for leather armor. It is the jack of all trades. Unless you are using fire staff then pick cloth armor to maximize the damage.
Buying mules
When you have met the quest above, I told you that we can abuse the tutorial island market to buy as much mule as possible, this is your chance to do so (optional, you can skip):
- Sell every item you have
- Buy as much mules as possible
Do note that your character will overweight, so don't over purchase the mules. Until then, proceed to follow the quest.
Last step, when arrived to a small town via ship, you can sell the mules right after for higher price.
Traveling to the main city
There is 5 major cities you need to know in albion, these are:
- Lymhurst (forest) [wood, stone, leather]
- Bridgewatch (desert) [leather, fiber, ore]
- Martlock (mountain) [wood, stone, ore]
- Thetford (swamp) [wood, leather, fiber]
- Fort Sterling (snow) [stone, fiber, ore]
Each has it's own resources to gather, has it's own crafting bonuses, etc. But you don't need to worry for all of those, because that type of playstyle is expensive, and boring.
Different cities has it's own market price ofc, all you need to consider is the biome you will live in, pick the one that you like the most, I personally live in Thetford and still love Thetford till this time.
Preparing for the real deal
I assume you have found your way to the main city. Before we continue to the actual contents, I'd recommend to prepare before battle. First thing, you need to know where to keep your stuff safe and sound.
In the city, there is 2 interest you have to know, one being the Market to buy and sell goods, and the other one is the Bank. You'd probably know this after arriving to the small town.
Buying equipments
Here are the list of items that you must buy everytime:
- Tier 3 Riding Horse
- Tier 4 Regular Cape
- Tier 4 Bag
- 2 Health / Poison Potions
- 2-4 Catfish / Cabbage Soup (cost more but better)
TIP: You don't need any higher equipment more than 4.1 (Tier 4 Enchantment 1) to survive.
By using only 4.1, you can sustain financially without premium, having many stock of your build. That is what I do, cuz honestly I don't have much time anymore to keep up with premium's price.
If you doubt that 4.1 can barely do anything, you're wrong. I have always used 4.1 equipments and can still compete with players that has T6 equipments, keep in mind, T7 and T8 especially is hard or even impossible to win against if you use 4.1 cheap build.
Your horse is your best friend
Yes, pilot your horse correctly, you should be fine even on the most dangerous zone with multiple gankers. Why? because it is faily common to get ganked, and I have more than enough experience to tell you this.
Don't just ignore people in full loot pvp zone, keep your eye keen, always change direction whenever you think someone is trying to stop you, better waste time a bit than dying only to lose everything.
The key to avoid gankers is just simply to not get hit, by anything. So you don't lose your gallop (speed bonus).
General build
Here is a recommended build, it is versatile.
Most imporantly, it is very cheap. Or you can find other builds from:
- albionmeta.com
- albiononline2d.com
- In-game corrupted dungeon infamy leaderboard
- Youtube
The Black Zone
This is the peak of albion, the black zone. You get the most reward, but also it is full loot pvp. Sounds scary but really not in practice. The black zone is where you maximize your fame farming, and money making.
As a solo player, albion is all about fame farming, money making, pvp, and pve. Albion itself is a pvp game. You can't just do pve all the time, even if you try to, you would just not progress. So prepare for the full loot pvp zone.
Fame farming
You can pick between these 3 methods:
- Dungeon, pve
- Mist, open world pvp
- Corrupted Dungeon, pvp
Dungeon
Let's start with dungeons, OK fame, OK loots, fairly safe.
Just like other games, typical dungeon that has bosses, kinda boring but it has vast collection of layouts, different bosses, an OK option overall, good for beginner players.
Try it for like 10 times? maybe. Then you can move to mist if you feel you're ready.
Mist
Despite the scary open world pvp aspect, it can be chaotic I admit, but once again, your horse is your best friend. As long as you haven't de-mounted, you are INVINCIBLE.
The Mist has great fame farming potential, chests drops fame books (tome of insights), mobs have good fame drops. Also has great potential for money making. A+ Tier I would say.
Corrupted Dungeon
Fame farming in corrupted dungeon not knowing how to escape or fighting is kinda bad, not good at all. But if you know how to do so, you'd be good to go. However, corrupted dungeon does not give you good chest drop, most of the time. Blame SBI for this.
One kill, one corrupted dungeon, a session. If I lose, I don't go bankrupt because of the cheap 4.1 build, but you need a bit of Item Power to do budget pvp. I got 320k worth of value, +6 maybe +7 4.1 build to invest in. This cost me ~20 minutes.
I'd recommend to just step in whenever you want to pvp. Fame is just a bonus point mostly, for this content.
Buying Premium
Cycle fame farming, make money by opening chests, and kill players. Rinse and Repeat!
If you have surpassed 2 million silver, then you should be able to sustain yourself until the current premium price.
When acquiring 30 days of premium, you can switch career as a gatherer, crafter, buy an island, do whatever you want. I consider you a success if you managed to buy premium, no need to buy premium if you don't want to.
Thank you, Terimong geunaseh!
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