Tsalinx (prime)/Pre Level 20 Leveling Tips

Last update: June 2024

Hi I’m Tsalinx, the original player of Tsalin from the 90’s. I enjoy helping new players find their footing in Elanthia. I have a lot of experience with many professions and have done the grind to level 20 dozens of times. I think the game is generally difficult at first and the most fun after you reach the level 20-35 range and learn your most important spells/skills...so let's get there faster and easier!

Here I share some of my personal tips for new players. I find myself writing a lot of this in Discord over and over again, so I figured I’d put it on the wiki.

Note: my playstyle may not be for everyone: I am what people call a “min-max-er” since I lean towards maximizing my hunting ability while getting the minimum amount of utility that I need. Gemstone IV is rather lenient, and even the most watered-down builds are feasible in many circumstances, but I do believe low level players can get the most benefit from using a “maximized build” early on (at least temporarily!). If you’re pre-level 20 just try it and see how it feels - you can always change back or modify!

Note 2: this information assumes you’ve already learned the very basics of playing Gemstone and know how to hunt, etc…and are looking for more information to improve your experience! If not, please start here: https://gswiki.play.net/New_Players%27_Guide

USE YOUR RESOURCES

A number of outstanding resources exist to help you throughout your journey in Elanthia. Take advantage of them!

The GS Wiki - partially player-maintained, it has an incredible amount of information. The main page has a “Getting Started” section that will help you with the basics. The game is changing constantly so sometimes things don’t get updated immediately, but you’ll find good answers to almost everything you could want here: https://gswiki.play.net/Main_Page

Discord - the official GS server is a great source of information. You can get answers from players and staff (at their discretion) there. Upon joining you’ll have limited access but if you authenticate with the DISCORD verb in-game, you can unlock more channels. https://discord.gg/xQvZYUKf

ESP - Type ESP in game to modify your settings - this allows you to THINK/CHAT with other players in the game and they will often be of great assistance if you ask nicely. Keep in mind that the General and Realm channels are “in character”. The OOC, Help, and Merchant channels are “out of character”. An example would be: think on help hello can someone remind me of the address for the wiki please? You can also set the HELP channel as your default by doing ESP TUNE HELP - and then when you THINK it will default to that channel.

Mentors - These players in the game are a part of an organization dedicated to helping other players. If you go to Silverwood Manor and ring the bell, they’ll often be available to come help you in person. Type DIR SILVERWOOD in town for directions.

HAVE GOOD STATS FOR YOUR BUILD

Stats are another thing to take advantage of: you get 5 “free” stat changes that you will lose when you hit level 20. After 20, you have to buy (with silvers, simucoins, or bounty points) a FIXSTATS potion, which is rather expensive.

Stats can be crucial, so feel free to ask for help in your #profession channel on the Discord server.

Check out the STATS page on the wiki to understand the importance of each stat. Take particular notice of the ones that affect how you hunt:

• Melee fighters increase their attack strength ("AS") with strength and reduce their attack roundtime with agility and dexterity ("AGIDEX")
• The Unarmed Combat System uses strength and agility to determine your Unarmed Attack Factor ("UAF")
• Warding casters increase their Casting strength using wisdom, except for wizards and bards who use aura, and sorcerers who use a combination of wisdom and aura
• Bolting casters, usually wizards, increase their BOLT AS with dexterity
• Archery uses ranged weapons and prioritizes dexterity for AS and strength for roundtime reduction

Early on, set your stats to give you the best combat effectiveness. If possible, I also like to make sure Logic is 100 to maximize EXP gain, though you may have to settle on 90. You might want to change your stats to accommodate different builds as you get closer to 20 and test out your options. When you’re about to hit level 20, use one stat change to lock in your long-term plan. This means you need to save one for your "final" stats change before you hit level 20.

When you get close to 20 it’s time to consider your long-term stats. There are generally two schools of thought with regards to 20+ stat allocation:

• Optimize for cap: set your stats at 19 such that you will have “perfect” stats at cap (level 100). While this can be rewarding later on, it makes the leveling process much more difficult. You will be weaker in key stats for a long time, and you’ll have less training points to use. Not recommended for new players.
• Optimize for level 50 (ish): set your stats at 19 such that your most important stats will hit 100 at level 50. This is a good balance and will not greatly hinder you early on, yet you will still have fairly good stats at cap. At some point after you cap, you can invest in a FIXSTATS potion to achieve perfect stats. If you do bounties throughout the process, you can usually afford to buy one with bounty points you’ve earned along the way.

The actual process is too advanced for this guide, so maybe I'll write another one and link it here. For now I recommend checking in with your #profession channel on Discord for help/advice with setting your stats once you're nearing level 20.

FAST SKILL MIGRATION

Take advantage of your pre level 20 fast skill migration! While not instant, you can change your skills any time at a very rapid rate. This is available in an unlimited fashion until you reach level 20. After level 20, you have to buy (with silvers, simucoins, or bounty points) a FIXSKILLS potion, which is not too expensive, but not cheap either!

Try different builds to see what playstyle is the most fun for you before you have to commit at level 20. This is best done closer to level 20 as you’ll have access to more skills and have enough of them to get an approximation of what it will feel like going forward. Keep in mind that many professions don’t feel strong until somewhere between level 20 and 35.

WHAT SKILLS TO TRAIN

Choosing your skills depends greatly on your chosen profession and strategy. Look for a guide on the wiki to help you understand what you need. That being said, there are some important general tips to keep in mind, especially if you want to optimize your hunting ability:

• As discussed previously: use your fast skill migration (unlimited until level 20) liberally!
• As you get closer to level 20, try different strategies so you can decide which one is the most fun to commit to at level 20.
• Don’t train utility skills unless you need them - then untrain them afterwards. Early on you’re fairly weak and you need all the help you can get hunting. For example, if you need to go forage for herbs, you can train perception and survival. Once you get the herbs, untrain them and put your points back into combat skills. This way you don’t water-down your already-limited hunting power. You can invest in these later when you’re more powerful!
• You can even use this strategy to buff yourself with spells you can’t afford! Let’s say you are putting most of your spell ranks in your primary circle to be a better hunter, but you want a powerful buff spell from a secondary circle. Simply do this while resting between hunts: unlearn some primary circle ranks, enough so that you can train up to the spell you want. Then cast 4 hours and 10 minutes (the maximum) of that buff on yourself, then unlearn the spell and put the ranks back in your primary circle. You won’t lose the buffs! Repeat as necessary.

SOME GENERAL STRATEGIES

Hang out in the crowded areas in town and feel free to ask people for spells. Many people love to help! They will often announce "mass spells" on ESP and you can join their group to take part.

MELEE

• Get a wizard to cast wizard strength on you if you don’t already have it - this increases your attack strength.
• Get a decent weapon - different weapon types have different attributes.
• Unfortunately many weapon types are not great, especially early on. For example, a rapier is just crappy, whereas a dagger can be great later when you can hide and ambush an eye with it…but early on, not so much.
• The best edged weapons are falchions and handaxes. If you can’t swing those with 4 second RT, you can try a longsword instead…or see about increasing your AGIDEX - can you hit the next RT reduction breakpoint?
• The best two handed weapon is a claidhmore - even though it’s hard to find one that is enchanted, it has a LOT of critical weighting and hits really hard, making up for the lower attack strength. Try for yourself!
• Regarding enchanted weapons: you can use enchants of twice your level, so at level 5 you could use +10 (ora) and at level 10 you can use +20 (vultite, rolaren, eonake), etc.
• Get a bless on your weapon if you're hunting undead - clerics can do this for you!
• If you find yourself getting hurt while hunting, you have two basic options:
  • Get more defensive spells from other players
  • Be more careful! You can wait until they attack you, THEN go into stance offensive and attack, and then get back into stance defensive before they attack you again. This is called “stance dancing”.
  • Make sure you’re not encumbered as this increases your round time. Sell your junk, get your boxes picked, deposit your silvers, and do whatever it takes to keep your round time as low as possible whenever hunting.

UNARMED COMBAT

• You don’t need a weapon - but you can buy UAC gloves and boots that can be enchanted and blessed. For the most part, brawling weapons (that you hold, as opposed to the gloves/boots that you wear) are actually worse than just using your fists.
• Make sure to set up your combos: JAB first until you see an opening, then follow up with the appropriate PUNCH/GRAPPLE/KICK afterwards.
• Many of the melee tips above apply here as well

CASTING

• Make sure to study your spellbook and know what all your spells do (read the wiki spell lists)!
• While resting, cast all your defensive spells up to the maximum duration.
• CHANNEL your spells as this does more damage (or for bolting, makes them more likely to hit a deadly area). This can be achieved by doing PREP <spell number> then CHANNEL <target> or by using INCANT: INCANT <spell number> CHANNEL or set it to always channel with INCANT SET CHANNEL <spell number>. The only downside to this is that you get 3 seconds of HARD roundtime rather than CAST roundtime.
• Channeling gets benefits for empty hands and stance offensive. While not required, this can make your spells hit much harder, which will save mana and time! If you have a lot of defensive spells you’re probably safe this way, otherwise you could also “stance dance” by waiting until you get attacked, then going in offensive and channeling your spell once or twice, then back to defensive before you get attacked again.
• Casters use a runestaff as their weapon - although you may want to keep your hands empty as long as it’s safe, as described above (this is true until things get much more dangerous around level 30+). You do not need to train in a weapon skill for this - you automatically learn to use your runestaff by simply training in any magical skill.
• Make sure you’re training Harness Power twice per level, at least until you get 30 or 40 ranks! Then you can stop training it for awhile (you'll want to have at least 1 rank per level once you get past level 30 or 40).

GETTING GEARED UP

Improving your gear is a fun part of playing the game, but you don't necessarily need to spend a lot and constantly upgrade. Depending on your budget, you have a lot of options but let's start at the beginning:

• Enchanted gear requires that your level is at least half its bonus
• So if you want to get some +10 gear at level 5, that's a fine idea.
  • +10 enchantment is also called "2x" because enchants used to be in increments of +5, so +5 x 2 = +10.
  • Often you will get to level 10 so fast it's not worth the time/effort to get new gear at level 5...but it's not that expensive so feel free to do it or skip it!
• At level 10 you should probably upgrade all of your gear to +20 (aka 4x).
  • This is, again, not very expensive
  • This includes your weapon(s), armor, and if applicable, your shield
  • You can eventually do better than this without spending too much, but we've often said "you can get to cap fine in plain 4x gear"

Now how about finding it? Where does this gear come from?!

• You could buy it from your town's weapon/armor shops
• Generally your basic UAC/UCS gear can be bought in town: buy UAC gloves and boots
• I prefer to find something on the "Playershops" website: https://ps.lichproject.org/items
  • This website lets you browse/search the shops in each town that are owned/run by actual players - they're usually updated a few times per day
  • It's not a good place to find entry-level UAC/UCS gear so just buy those at the town shops listed above
• You should also feel free to ask for help on ESP - I can almost guarantee you that some players will be happy to find/donate basic 4x (or better!) gear to you

What if you want even better gear?

• If you want to upgrade, you can spend as much as you want - some players sell elite gear for billions of silvers - but there's gear available for all budgets.
• Some can be found on the Playershops website but the prices are often inflated here for anything above entry level
• Sales and auctions by players are listed constantly on the Discord Marketplace Forum
• Exciting gear is sold at events/festivals that occur throughout the year, usually every other month or so. The most popular gear festival happens twice a year: Duskruin. Another popular option once a year is Ebon Gate.
• If you're not sure what to buy or how much it's worth, ask around! ESP and Discord are great ways to get help.

DO BOUNTIES FOR EXTRA REWARDS

Once you’re comfortable hunting, try using the bounty system at the Adventurer's Guild. They will give you a random level-appropriate task to complete, which will reward extra experience, silvers, and bounty points. This is a great way to switch things up and explore new areas, while also earning extra rewards.