Author - shakaama

FIRST I'd like to say thank you Acclaim and um the other company for putting together an AWESOME [and oh my god addcting ] game. This has got to be the most innovative game ever created in the MMORPG genre.

My only wish is that you would add more RPG to the MMORPG. This game is wide open for it: drunken beggars hanging around, noble wu tang scoffing, evil thieves robbing you on the highways, and the virgin monks of shaolin saying buddha bless you all day long. This is every saturday night kung fu theatre's nerds wet dream come true.

On more gripe and i'll start the guide: you have 1 character model, could ya spruce up the art just a tad, if you'd like to hire me, i'd do it for you. And what i mean is you could make these models soooo realistic as to burst this whole thing wide open. [ I have seen better art in other games that had like 15 different races and putting on armor on each different race has got to be the biggest pain in the rear i'm sure, but you all only have 1 model so no excuse for you. ]

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO: THE THIRD REVISED REAL GUIDE TO ELITE GUNG FU 2.1

There doesn't seem to be any in depth guides on here so I thought I'd take it upon myself to clue you in on some basic and more advanced things. The purpose of this guide is to make your character like me, Orrochimaru, the greatest ninja .... oops, I mean, greatest warrior to walk the land.

Each player has 3 basic objectives [ in my opinion only 1 but you're all noobs so you're delusional and think you have 2 others ]
1. to learn eveyrthing they possibly can in the game. [ this is hopeless and pointless, but whatever floats your boat Mary ]
2. to master every style they get their hands on [ not necessarily that they get a whole bunch of styles but they want to take them all to 10, not a bad objective but still a little noobish ]
3. to become an elite kung fu master lvl 30012351. [ if you say anything about there only being 212 level i'll put a cursed seal on your neck so fast it'll make your snake spin ]

1. For those who chose number 1 i will tell you exactly what you can do.
You're frolicking along when suddenly you appear on the character screen and voila you are born in some poor decrepit village as a novice kung fu wanna be. ATTENTION: you are a vagabond with no ties to any clan. If you so choose you could be a demon, wutang, beggar, [ and if you chose a girl a stupid flower girl ] or if you wanna keep your virginity a friggin shaolin monk [ virgins, no drinky, no meat, pretty damn boring if you ask me ] Ok so the world is wide open for you. ATTENTION: if you chose beggar watch out, you become affilitated with beggar at the ripe old age of LEVEL FOUR, good game, this precludes you from walking anywhere else but beggar palace and the white clan zones from now on. For the rest of you that actually bathe you may at any time before you become affiliated with a clan, go to each clans village and learn all the basic weapon skills [ unless you're not a girl you can't learn the flower girl skills, i tell you those lesbians realy &#!@ ] Congradulations you now know some pretty damn useless Gung Fu it's not fit for peddlers. However, for posterity's sake you now know every weapons style. You can proceed with your clan style and continue the rest of this guide. ADDENDUM: if you want to do the whole ragnorok "look at me i'm a lvl 300 vagabond" you can stay a vagbond the entire span of your levels. I won't say it's useless nor cast any aspurssions. Quite frankly if you level a wu tang or demon all the way up, why not level a vagabond all the way up just to see what will happen.

Oh as a side note you can learn wu tang sword and fist/feet just to say you did it, before you choose a role with your clan. You can also learn demon saber and fist/feet. AFTER YOU CHOOSE A ROLE WITH YOUR CLAN they wipe your kung fu from other clans ????? ^_^ how you unlearn kung fu. sad but true.

2. For those who chose number 2 i have a special little 5 minute guide for you.
Ok you have your chosen style in your hot little hands. Go to the weapon seller and pick up a PRATICE <insert weapon here>. I recommend from 1-13 level you get Dex 40 first then str, then like 20 essence. 40 dex will allow you to not get hit nearly at all almost, even when surrounded. If it's a first style don't buy the practice gloves Smile duh. Also do not put any mastery points, duh they add dmg. You are doing what is called GIMPING. Gimp yourself out so that you do the least amount of dmg to the mob without killing yourself. Make yourself as weak as possible. Use the practice weapon. Now activate your style and go to town on those mobs. You'll see the skill levels fly by. If you realy want to hone them quickly stay at lvl 2 skill, the horribly animation of 3 and above actually does less hits / second. That's right at the bottom of each skill you'll notice a number. If you mouse over that number two arrows will appear. Just click the left arrow to get back to lvl 2 skill. You'll only have to do this once because once you put it at two, leveling up won't move it.

SKILL XP: I'll explain it again since people didnt' understand. Just like lvl 1 has oh like 1000 xp to make lvl 2, and lvl 13 requires 50,000 xp to make lvl 14, your kung fu skills have levels to them also. HOWEVER, kung fu xp GENERATION isn't determined by what you hit, it's determined by A) is the mob you're hitting, going to give you ANY xp. B) do you have vital essence in your bar it can draw on to power the technique. C) did you swing and HIT or did you swing and MISS. OK swinging your weapon on a mob that gives xp and having vital essence powers the kung fu. Regardless if the mob is light blue - red you're going to get the same skill xp. The only difference is, lvl 1 skill takes 200 swings, whereas lvl 5 takes like 5000 [ my math is off right now sorry ]. So by GIMPING you are swinging 10-15 times on each mob instead of 3. You can squeeze in skill xp to the maximum on each mob you kill this way. You'll get to lvl 5 almost withint 30 minutes. And if you have high dex and good constitution you can be surrounded and be a blender and grind out 10 levels without resting. [ not likely but you get the point. ]

For those who aren't that extreme you can still gimp yourself for your new techniques so you can at least get to lvl 5 fairly fast to see what can be done with it.

Keep this section in mind though. I always gimp until about lvl 3 of each begining skill. That way I quickly get equal dmg from a new skill as an old skill.

REVISED: I left out the two most important skills. MEDITATION AND STEPS. These two skills are the easiest ones to get to lvl 10. I HAVE ALL MEDS AND STEPS AT LVL 10. How, you might ask? Oh great and powerful Orrochimaru!!! It's quite simple. I go to heifi; Go to the GENERAL MERCHANT; Buy a crane satchet from him; Get into peace mode; and sit there for about 4 -8 hours. Sounds boring? SELL ALL THOSE NOOBY THINGS you've been collecting and have no room for.

a note on lightfoot. The same thing works on lightfoot. Get that crane satchet, go into peace mode, now lighfoot all the way around heifi, zhugang[however you spell it], jinan. What is going on is, while you're lightfooting, your peace mode activates the crane satchet, so you get about a 50% return of energy whiel lightfooting. HOPEFULLY, you remembered to turn off meds and steps to maximize lightfoot xp / second. Getting to 1-5 lightfoot can be done in 1 hour flat, if not higher.

3. For those who chose number 3. STOP COPYING ME. OMG NOOBS L2PLAY. just kidding. You couldn't be the all powerful Orrochimaru anyway.

Ok here's an outline of the real guide.

I. character window
II. stats are us
III. lvl 13
IV. lvl 26
V. and beyond
VI. money what?
VII. Damn bro you look fly. And why do i get raped all the time.
VIII. upgrading weapons
IX. speed leveling


I. Character window
From top to bottom. You have your name ... oki'll only mention the important things. Next to your name you have a thing called an epitheth, when you have an affiliation with a clan or a hero title you click the button and you select your epitheth. This is that little title the floats above your head saying "Beggar noob beginner" stuff like that. It's very helpful because each one adds stats to your character. Later on you do hero quests and you get a different epitheth, and it has much better stats [ in my opinion ] So remember to click that. And wear your "I'm a noob wu tang wannabe" with pride. Prolly kick my sorry butt, that that old geezer from konoha, damn him.

Next you have your rage bar. In the left hand top of the screen you have the round rage guage, in the character screen it's just a red bar. Each time you: kill; do a crit; receive a crit WHETHER THE MOB IS LIGHT BLUE OR DRIPPING RED you get some rage points. When the rage bar fills up you have something like 30 seconds to A) target yourself by clicking on your name bar in the top left hand corner OR pressing U also targets yourself. B) click on the round rage guage to start you raging.

When you are in rage mode you do better dmg and better attack rate ... and you glow red like that stupid naruto kid when he's about to die and calls upon the 9 tailed fox to bail his sorry butt out.... sorry i went off on a tangent. HOWEVER, you take damage like Sakura chan. So pay attention to the rage bar in your character screen and your own health and vital essence. you want to be nearly full when you click on the rage so you can kick butt like a sound ninja. It doesn't matter, remember, what you were doing before that rage guage fills up. once you kill that last mob to put it at 100% the timer starts. So i'd heal all wounds and rest up to full before killing that last mob.

Other stuff i'll explain in the character screen. Like ... right now.

II. Stats r Us
ok you got Str, Essence, Wisdom, Con, Dex.

Strength allows you to hit harder with a MELEE weapon. And block with a MELEE weapon. And defence. Now there is some wide debate about whether or not DEFENCE is broken. Some seem to say that you need 250 str before it matters. The irony of this is, you're halfway done with your leveling before you GET 250 str. Logically speaking then, defence doesn't work. There isn't the same debate for dodge[dex] so which of the two is supperior.

That being said, STR is the pve ruler.

I'm gonna skip around.

Constitution um ... gives you more hit points, regens hp faster and um ... makes your hair shiny.

Dexterity however is where it's at in pvp baby. Ok so str gives you constant damage right? Dex gives you the chance to crit. ZOMG ORROCHIMARU I KNOW HOW YOU LOVE THOSE CRITS. why yes, yes i do. The more dex you have the higher your crit CHANCE. wait did he say chance Sad Yeah sux huh. You'd need like 250 dex to be a crit god. But oh well, we can dream. BUT WAIT, that's not all. Dex adds to your dodge, i think like 4 points. BUT WAIT, ... ZOMG ALL THIS FOR DEX? yup, dex is sexy. Dex .... adds ... to .... your ... WEAPON SPEED YAY ZOMG bbqpwnsauce ftw. That's right boys n girls you too can be a kung fu MASTA with zillionith speed with DEX. Watch as you slice n dice and tear folks to shreds with amazing blurring speed. BUT WAIT ... ^_^ ORROCHIMARU YOU MEAN DEX HAS MORE? yes, indeed, it does. DEX .... drum roll .... ADDS TO YOUR TOHIT WITH A MELEE FRIGGIN WEAPON. Not only do you go faster, but you hit more often with dex. So what you're saying is .. if you had a billion points in str but 18 in dex, you'd never hit and therefore your dps would &#!@. yup pretty much. but if you had a bajillion points in dex and only 18 in str, you'd be a crit monster that hit every time, and dodge like NEO in the matrix, and had the defence of the Chicago bears linebackers? yes, young one, yes you would. and therefore your dps would rock the sox and you'd never take dmg? again, you learn so slowly, but yes you would.

Essence .. um is like kinda like con for hit points, but it's for vital points instead. However it adds a little to resistance of magic FOR YOU, and um directly adds to the dmg you do with magic, like str does for melee. Don't get me wrong having essence isn't all a bad thing, but for those who aren't casters 10 points is all you'll need unless you are a KUNG FU MASTA and uses 50 moves each time you kill a monster [^_^ you are using 50 moves to kill a monster is beyond me, I just throw a snake or two at them and they fall over ]

WISDOM ... ZOMG ORROCHIMARU YOU'RE NOT GONNA TELL ME WISDOM IS LIKE DEX FOR MAGIC. you catch on fast for a red headed league of beggars step-child. Yes wisdom is the dex of magic. it slices and dices but just keeps on going. tohit with magic, crit with magic, um and all that other fancy shmancy magical stuff. Wait do they even have casters int his game? I've never seen anything but demon and wu tang warriors. *shrug*

PLaying a caster is no fun in this game. Their spells look like glow brite. There's no pizzaz and snap to them. Melee get all the girls. Casters stand back and get no loot. [ should realy add the direct loot to inventory thingy other games have, like say final fantasy online? ]

Ok evryone understood that right? yes orrochimaru we understood. Good cuz i was about to sick my ninjas from the sand country on you. Oh wait that's right they betrayed me and turned their back on me. Where's the loyalty these days. I swear. You kill 1 or 2 peasants or 50 of their ninjas and they get all butt hurt. Oh sorry another tangent.

III. LEVEL 13

NEVER BUY WEAPONS FROM NPC'S

ok quickly. from 1 - 13 youre a nobody. level up as fast as possible and do all the quests as quickly as possible, and do them all including the stupid story teller quests, the ending is actually useful. Get the biggest toughest weapon you can wrap your little fingers on. Who cars about kung fu at these levels, it &#!@ anyway. pump up your STR as high as possible, so you are 3 shotting mobs. If you need more dex to keep from missing, pump some in that too littlerally about 10 dex should suffice.

Now you hit lvl 13 in like 1 hour right? if you're a noob and said no, be quiet. at OC1 you get into the clan, sorta, they give you some clan kung fu. unlike the noob kung fu, this actually does dmg. stick to weapons though, no one ever sells good gloves. You'll get your first epitheth [ unless you don't wash yourself and are a beggar guy ] put it over your head and wear it with pride. At this point you are not choosing a role yet. I would personally pick a WEAPON style, versus feet/hand, and stay with that for all 13 levels, don't even switch to the next one you get at lvl oc4 or whatever. You can pump all your mastery points into it also, because at GC1 you get all your stat points back AND your mastery points back. Keep this in mind. Don't gimp yourself during the first 26 levels. Just level up as fast as possible.

KEEP DOING YOUR QUESTS.

gosh i sound like a suburban mom saying "keep eating your vegetables billy". Hmmm I should send my 4 sound ninja to go kill all suburban moms and free all the children from having to eat their vegetables. Then I could train the children and take over KONOHA muahahahahaa.... Oh sorry tangent again.

But how should i build?
Premade builds are ... well dumb. You should instead do Orrochimaru's pattented build test.
1. every time you level up, go find an orange mob. [ orange mobs have higher defense than you, higher dodge rate,more hp ]
2. don't spend your points of course just yet
3. fight the orange mob
a. was he too hard to hit = dex [ only if you had litterally 10 misses and only 1 hit CONSECUTIVELY. that doesn't mean you missed twice in a row ]
b. was he taking chunks out of me too much = con [ litteraly did he hit you and half your hp was gone ]
c. was the fight lasting forever = str [ litterally did you hit him 4 times and only took off 10% ]
d. could i not do all my special moves and have meditation toggled and ran out of vital = essence [ you should only do like 2 special moves per fight. Here if you had meditation and steps on and you did 2 moves and all your vital energy was gone? ]

When doing my test, be very very strict. Always lean towards STR. Ask yourself, "if I had 4 more points of str would the con, essence, dex not matter?" If the answer is yes then pump str.

No need to get a premade build. Do this test every level and you'll have the perfect build. However, spreading yourself evenly around is never adviseable. Pick something you excel in. If 10% of the population can beat you every time with their build? so what you can kill 90% of the population, who cares about the twink nubs. Look at me an 90 year old ninja pwned me. Can't win them all. If it's more like 50% of the population can pwn you then something is wrong. You didn't do my pattented build test correctly. GET ER DONE!!!

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE A BUILD:
1-13:
dex 10
str all

13-26
dex 20
str all

26 +
reset stats - choose clan role
warrior / hybrid
add 5 points con FIRST
every 13 levels add 10 points of dex starting with 10 dex from 1-13. So 13-26 20 dex and so on
str all

OR

26+
dex 1
con 1
str 2
this build gives you a bit more leeway to breath. The all str build is very very tight and is trying to get you to squeeze in max defence as soon as possible. I have found that defence doesn't seem to be the be all end all right now. So gimping your hp and dex in order to maximize defence might not be as logical as it sounds.

OR
pvp
26+
dex 2
con 1
str 1
this makes you dex heavy and good for pvp. you want to have con to avoid being 1 shotted by casters. [ wait are there realy casters in this game ]

ADDENDUM TO STATS: If you haven't noticed there is a section in living [PRESS L KEY] that has collectibles. These gift you elixirs if you collect the items. I'll write a "4 hour guide on collectibles" soon, but anyway ... drink elixirs to beef up your character. I'd only drink elixirs though AFTER my last reset.

ADDENDUM: trinkets for those who are attempting an all STR build you'll need at least 3 pocket clothing and trinkets. I reccommend you buy as many tiger's eye rings as possible and also in heifi the GENERAL MERCHANT sells a satchet that gives +40hp for 1k.

Stick to 1 kung fu during this time 13-26 and level it up as fast as possible. If you must, go ahead and gimp until lvl 5 of each kung fu style.

IV. LEVEL 26 [ Revolving Chakra ]

Ok you're actually in the guild now. Select a role ... like you have a choice ... yeah so select warrior role and go put in some skins for contribution points and head on over to the kung fu MASTA,... er not me, your clan's kung fu master. Pick 1 KUNG FU style. Mouse over all of the styles and your'e shooting for i think around rc8 or so is one of the best styles and set your hopes on that one. If you chose warrior as your build, get some smashing techniques. I personally can kill a mob with 4 smash hits. But, i'm ORROCHIMARU, it's expected.

getting from 26 on takes some time. so choose your kung fu's wisely. don't go back and learn a new style just because you can. you'd do heaps more dmg getting the first one to 10 than learning one midway and only know lvl 5 of each. [ not talking to casters, they get crazy crap and it's evenly spaced for some strange reason ]

REMEMBER TO DO YOUR QUESTS BILLY.
there i go again.

V. And beyond. Here's where you have to decide: do i learn lvl 10 of this kung fu. or do i go up in levels as fast as possible. Some have said, group as much as possible. Other's have taken the stance that groups are evil becaus too many people leech [stand around doing nothing while gettin xp] and people kill too slow while taking xp. The second point is more accurate I think. A healer can't kill as fast as a caster or warrior. So they are killing 1/3 the speed of everyone else. If you're in a HERO BAND neither one of these bad things should be present. The advice then should be join a hero band. Well ... join a good Hero Band... and no you can't join mine, you're not a sound ninja.
Remember to do the hero quests by the way and get your 2nd epitheth.

Here's a slight addendum to leveling up:
Try not to fight mobs that crit a lot; bleed you; have special attacks like stuns. These mobs will cause you to level slower, due to more resting. Find stuff like bears and animals. If at all possible stay away from death valley mobs, they almost always have some special attack.

Also I would refine every weapon I use to at least lvl 2. Start doing this around RC1. To refine simply go to heifi, go to the GENERAL MERCHANT [man this guy has everything] buy 1 each of the dragon bottles, 1 black, 1 white. Go over to the WOMAN???? blacksmith and she'll refine stuff for you. Place your weapon in the slot first, then the picture for the requisite bottle will appear. Place the bottle in there she wants. put each bottle in there and VOILA +2 refinement.

VI. MONEY WHAT?
kill light blue mobs. they drop like flys. they dont' hurt you... as much. and you are going through 200-400 loot tables versus fighting yellows and going through 25 loot tables. [ loot table refers to each monster having a list of items it can drop based on a percetage chance, they call it a table, like a table of contents ] With these mega drops make sure you have 3 backpacks. This is called FARMING. So if you are killing for money and drops, you are FARMING. The easiest money maker is blood essence. sell it for 35k-40k and you'll be bathing in 500k soon enough. Some people try to sell it for more but ... well it's just ridiculous. You need like 50 to attempt a good refinement. At 35k even the poor people can attempt some good refinements and you have some nice money. You scratch my back, I put a cursed seal on you. [i think the name cursed seal has such a bad sound to it, I'm going to rename it, pretty seal]

VII. Damn bro you look fly. And why do i get raped all the time.
Ok notice there's a little peddler in your beginner town with some clothes at RIDICULOUS PRICES ZOMG ORROCHIMARU WHERE DOES HE GET OFF CHARGING 50K FOR A SHIRT WITH NO STATS. Those asians are sticklers for lookin fly for the honeys G. What this is, is a uniform that sits in the slot next to your weapon on your character screen, just like the santa suit everyone is running around in. This SUIT goes over everything you're wearing so you look like you got on matching socks and the purse that goes with it at all times. UNDERNEATH this gorgeous suit of perfectly matched evening gown and shoes, is your real clothes.

This brings me to part DEUX of why do i get raped all the time. If you're still wearing vagabond pants raise your hand. ... yes we know your'e a noob. put your hand down. Ok go to your white / black clan area and go to the drapery goddess. She'll have a hat that gives like +13 dodge or something like that. [ or you can do the quest that gives you a tight hat with 30 defence on it AND 13 dodge. i told you to do those quests. ] Now go to your clan clothing vendor and buy the cheapest bags, and buy the 3 pocket pants and shirt. [ you did buy the 50k suit so you dont' look retarded right? ] now put all your little trinkets in those pockets. Sometimes you can quest for magic clothes that add armor and stats to you.

The point is, don't gimp your clothes. Just because they dont' have platemail +5 for sale, doesn't mean you forget to ever upgrade it.

ADDENDUM: the dilema you're faced with here is should you buy 3 pocket clothing or just do all the quests and get magical clothing with specialties on them, but less pockets. This should be a no brainer ............. AT LOWER LEVELS. You're not exposed to AWESOME trinkets to put in your pockets so doing the quests should be your "things to do". After you reach ... RL12 HOWEVER, you start seeing nice trinkets. This is where you want 3 and 4 pocket clothing.

VIII. upgrading weapons

Personally i wouldn't do it, unless you found some outrageous weapon that had a magical +50 attack on tuesday, power. You'll always find better weapons and you'll level up and wish you hadn't spent the money. However, if you want some pvp pwnage, upgrade your weapons to your hearts content. AFTER 2 refinement there's a chance the refinement will fail and BREAK your weapon. Break as in my dead hands after that old geezer got through with them and sealed them. You'll not get your weapon back, don't pass go, don't collect 200 dollars, go straight to jail. Yeah it sux and is expensive to boot. You have been warned.

IX. speed leveling

Groups are good for only 1 thing, speed leveling. You can get in a shared xp group and level every 30 mins - hour. And if the group moves to only fight yellows, you'll be sky rocketting in flight. Your build should be suited to doing the most dmg, if you are in a hero band and stick with the people. That way you can have a healer with you all the time and you can just pour out the dps.

If you can, find a group that is HEAVY in str build. The defence and high dmg output should mow through the mobs like a hot knife through butter. If you're the leader ask every member to show all to you. Just because someone is breathing doesn't make them a good player. Beware of leechers, kick them out with a quickness. Remember a leecher both doesn't contribute, AND causes another division of xp just by being there. Also if people go to their clan base, kick them and invite them back when they come back. no big deal.

I know this sounds like micro management, but if you do it right you'll fly through the levels. Also if people know you play by fair rules they'll appreciate it more. Also talk in groups. You never know, someone might have some knowledge of something you hadn't realized yet in the game.

I HOPE THIS HELPS YOU NUBS, now someone revive Kimimaro and heal him.

[Source] Official Forum