All words that appear in bold have in-game files which can be accessed by typing "info <topic>" once you've joined the guild.
The previous version of this guide can be found here. This version containes a large amount of information and insight from Xiu.
About the guild[]
Bladesingers are human warriors who have learned the ways of Elven magic and runes to augment their combat. While they do gain a small number of spells, the core of the Bladesinger experience is inscribing their gear with a variety of runes. Runes can augment the regeneration of the Bladesinger's health, spirit, stamina and elven magical energy and provide the inscribed gear with increased damage and durability and provide additional protection.
Location[]
The Bladesinger guild is located in western Pinnacle near the entrance to Fantasy. (cot,s,w,w,n,w,w,n,nw,nw)
Common command list[]
- bt: chat on the main guild line
- info: access guild help files "info" without an argument will list all topics.
- gwho: shows online Bladesingers
- skills: shows you the skills you can raise. You spend GXP to raise skills.
- salute: will allow you to regain magical energies from a corpse. The corpse will be left behind and available for other guilds.
- bury: will destroy a corpse, but provides no benefit to the Bladesinger.
- runes: shows your current rune loadout
- runerating: shows how runes are currently affecting you
Rune guide[]
The following runes are available for inscription by Corath or the advanced Bladesinger:
| Rune | Effect | Skill |
|---|---|---|
| Regen | ||
| Health (He) | Hit point (HP) regen | Elder Runes |
| Spirit (Sp) | Spell point (SP) regen | Elder Runes |
| Revalrie (Rv) | Ne'ra (NE/GP1) regen | Iron Runes |
| Rejuvenation (Rj) | So'kra (SO/GP2) regen | Fey Runes |
| Damage/Protection | ||
| Battle (Bt) | Edged | Iron Runes |
| Stone (So) | Blunt | Iron Runes |
| Starfire (Sf) | Fire | Fey Runes |
| Winter (Wi) | ice | Fey Runes |
| Corrosion (Co) | acid | Iron Runes |
| Storms (St) | electric | Eldritch Runes |
| Thought (Th) | mind | Eldritch Runes |
| Balefire (Ba) | energy | Fey Runes |
| Venom (Ve) | poison | Venom Runes |
| Decay (De) | radiation | Eldritch Runes |
| Misc | ||
| Power (Po) | Increases the power of other runes | Elder Runes |
| Sending (Se) | Sends a piece to the guild when you quit out | Elder Runes |
| Eternity (Et) | Increases durability | Elder Runes |
Quick start guide[]
Upon joining, the first thing to do is to gather up some equipment and get them runed by Corath. Corath is a guild NPC who provides more powerful runes than new bladesingers can etch and you will be using his runes for some time. To have Corath rune your items, you must remove the item and "pprepare <item>" to set it up for runing then you can "pinscribe <rune> on <item>" and Corath will quickly add the rune and return your item to you. Repeat until all rune slots are used and then move onto the next item. If you make a mistake, you can "rdispell <item>" to have Corath reset it to its natural state. Runes can no be inscribed on any item worn in the "Magical" or "Wizard" slots. Bladesingers are limited to a maximum of 8 worn "Unknown" type armors and protection runes on unknowns will not function.
Important note: ALWAYS make sure eternity is the last rune you add as no further runes can be added after it.
At glevel 1[]
Have the following runes inscribed by Corath:
- Weapon: health, revalrie, power, starfire, thought, eternity
- Standard armor and others: health, revalrie, power, battle, stone
- Unknowns: health, revalrie, power, eternity
You can skip eternity on anything unbreakable and fill it with protection/damage runes if you know you'll be encountering non-physical damage/weaknesses.
The only skills worth training at the start are Combat Strategies and Freeform and when you unlock it you'll want to switch to freeform by typing "freeform". Training those will raise your gxp rate a little and you'll do a little more damage, but what you really want most is glevel 5. Go out and fight small stuff because your healing is limited to only the regen from your health runes. Mob size doesn't matter as gxp is granted for using attacks in combat. After combat (or if you wimpy out) you can type revalrie (not to be confused with the rune of the same name) while out of combat to enter a trance and regen faster.
At glevel 5[]
Keep training Combat Abilities and Acrobatics till you get dodge (power, not skill). Do "dodge on" now and add it your .login. Now, head back out and fight some more. You will get more gxp now that you're fighting with dodge on.
At glevel 15[]
At this point, you're offically a Bladesinger and you can now join the first of the lodges so "joinlodge akhvelahr". This will allow you to dedicate a weapon and start building mastery with it. Pick a good weapon that you can reliably get because you're going to be using it for many combat days and you always want to be using it. If you're new to 3k in general or simply don't know much about weapons, ask for help on the guild line as there are several decent weapons which are very easy for larger players to grab regularly for you and are worth dedicating.
At glevel 20[]
Okay, here's were stuff starts to get good. First off, "leavelodge" and "joinlodge akhfaer". Then train Spirit Magic until Faerie Magic comes back and then train Faerie Magic and High Magic until you get rejuvenate. Rejuvenate will heal you in combat and give gxp when used so you're probably going to want to do "caction rejuvenate" so you attempt to heal every round. You'll also want to look at what you're fighting and scale up a bit to ensure you're healing as often as possible, since it's a good source of gxp. As you fight these bigger mobs, you may also start to notices that you take more damage from non-physical attacks; this is a baked-in weakness of Bladesingers since much of your damage mitigation will be for physical types. Not much can be done about that, so you'll be relying on your healing to cover that. Rejuvenate will use SP and So'kra, so we're gonna need to adjust some runes to bump up your regen.
Since you have healing, you can drop the health runes. You'll want to have spirit, rejuvenation, and power on all your pieces. You can experiment with dropping some revalrie runes to find a balance point for Ne'kra regen and you can drop a few spirit runes because your SP needs won't be especially high, yet. You can also drop a few spirit runes if you have significant SP regen from items and such. For the remaining slots, you can alternate battle and stone. You can also drop eternity if you're willing to make sure your armor stays in good shape on your own. You can also, of course, skip eternity on anything unbreakable. Don't worry too much about sorting all this out, just get solid enough to get back to the gxping because you've got another change coming up at 25.
At glevel 25[]
At 25 you get spiritweave which will let you convert SP to So'kra (or vice versa, but you probably won't be doing that). Depending on what you've been doing, you may need to train up High Magic, Spirit Magic, and Faerie Magic to unlock it. You will probably want to put spiritweave into your mud-side reflex power to you keep your So'kra charged up. At this point, you're going to want to make sure that everything has spirit, rejuvenation, and power because you are not going to want to run out of SP or So'kra. Fill the rest with enough revalrie to keep your Ne'kra up and fill it out with battle/stone/eternity. Again, you can skip eternity on anything unbreakable.
At glevel 30[]
At glevel 30, there's a bunch things to sort out and you'll create your long-term rune setup.
First of all, you get evade2 which will allow for per-hit healing. Move your rejuvenate power to this command so you're healing after every hit.
Second, you get another defense power: Cloak of shadows. Train High Magic, Shadow Magic and Combat Casting until it unlocks and toggle it on. At this point, you'll have the holy trinity of gxping: dodge, rejuvenate, and shadows. Since Cloak of Shadows uses Ne'kra, you'll also need to revisit your rune setup. Everything possible should get spirit, rejuvenation, revelarie, and power. Fill it out with battle/stone and eternity on breakables. You may also want to look at the gear you're getting and start to favor pieces with SP regen, since that drives your healing.
Another choice you may want to consider is removing eternity from everything and replacing it with something else, as you now have access to the "maintain" command which will allow you to repair armour and weapons in the field by spending Ne'kra. By this point, you should have a good idea of whehter you want the extra runes (and which ones you want) or not have to worry about armour/weapon breakage.
Since you have your gxp powers, glevel 30 is a good spot to take a break and work on rune (or other) skills, if you want to. For reference, Corath's rune skills are at "Very Good", but he has Rune Mastery at Very Good, which requires Item Preparation to be at Perfect. So, if you are raising all your skills up evenly, you'll need to go a bit beyond Very Good to get to Corath's level without Rune Mastery.
Also, keep up on training Spirit Magic. It's good for your health.
Glevel 30 - 65[]
Pretty standard guild level increases. Just keep plugging along
Glevel 65[]
At glevel 65, a few things change, but you should have a pretty solid understanding of your playstyle and various regen needs to be able to sort out your situation.
Beyond[]
Every glevel after 65 increases your damage resistance and damage (via frenzy).
Unknowns[]
Wearing as many unknowns as possible (8 for Bladesingers) is a great benefit, since more gear = more runes. Here a list of common unknowns for runing
- Zelligar's Headband - Zelligar in Zelligar's Castle in Fantasy
- a Starfleet com badge - Various mobs in the Star Trek TNG Pod in Midways in Science
- a warrior's bandolier - Worf in Star Trek TNG Pod in Midways in Science
- a visor - Geordi in Star Trek TNG Pod in Midways in Science
- a swirling and humming barrier shield - End of Section Z in Science
- A KrustyBrand(tm) Medic-Alert Bracelet - Off Grampa Simpson in the Simpsons house in Simpsons/Simpsons2
- A pair of panties - Model in Victoria's Secret in the Chaos Mall