Matakishi's Tea House

Starter Guide
By Sovelin

Silkroad takes place in China. You start off in the city of Jangan. This game is a bit different from other MMO's. For starters, you aren't necesarily a warrior or a wizard. You are kinda both. You can level up weapon skills, or magic skills (called force). What magic does is add elemental damage to your weapon, and at higher levels (min. 30) you actually get longer range magic that doesn't require a weapon.

There are three types of weapons, swords, polearms, and bows. Each type as two subcategories. 1 category has a higher magic attack, and one category has a higher physical attack. I've tried out both and averaged the damage they do. Since you almost always apply a magic force to an attack, the magic attack weapon is important. 3 out of 4 of your attacks will use magic, so a magic weapon will always benefit you more. Your physical attack is not much lower, and your average attack will be fairly higher. So whatever type you choose, for levels below 30 always choose the subtype with the higher magic attack.

Each weapon type has special abilities. I have never used swords or bows, so I don't know what theirs are. The first polearm ability is a thrust attack that increases ur physical by 160% for one attack. This combined with a type of force is very effective. The polearm ability also takes up less then half the mp of a force ability, but is really only useful against bosses, or enemies that are red to you. The next ability is a block which I never use. After that is a spinning attack that can attack 3 enemies simultaneously. The next two abilities I haven't unlocked yet. The last ability is a permanent 102hp boost and you get it at level 15.

There are four types of force, three of them enhance your weapons, the fourth one is healing. The first is ice. I don't know much about this one, but it adds ice damage to your weapon, and it also has a chance to slow down or freeze an enemy. That's about all I know about ice.

The next type of force is lightning. This one I don't know too much about, but it lowers the agility of your enemies.

Then there is fire, which is my type. It does the most damage out of the elements, but it has the worst effect. It has a 25% probability of burning an enemy, and an enemy will usually die before the burn ever does anything anyway. And if a burn does work on a much stronger monster, like a boss, it does very little damage. Another fire ability is called fire shield. It adds fire to your shield and you take less damage, but I've never used this. Mainly because I use polearms and not shields. Another fire ability is where your fire damage is increased by 3%. It takes up 98mp, but lasts six minutes. It doesn't add a whole lot of damage, but because of its long running time it is a must have. The next 2 I haven't unlocked yet, but one of them is a fire arrow, and the other is a magic fire shield to block magic attacks. The last thing is a permanent 1% increase in your fire damage. Each of the forces have a special likes this. I'm not sure what ice and lightning do though. I think lightning added 9 to your accuracy.

The first force ability is a self heal. It is very useful in the beginning. The next force cures abnormalities. The next force is for curing targets, including urself. The next is a revive, and I'm not sure about the one after that. The last is a permanent 102mp increase.

Now, about how to choose skills. Pick one weapon and level that up a little more than half of how much you level your elemental force. Choose one of the three elemental force types and level that up constantly. I wouldn't level up each subcategory in your force type, nor all the subcategories in your weapon type. Choose them sparingly. Also, level up your nonelemental force ability. Level that sparingly too. You will want to level up the self heal a lot. The abnormality heal is worthless to learn because u rarely get an abnormality, and u can cure the ones u do get with pills. You will get a lot of pills in the game, so don't worry about it. Everyone should learn revive though by the time you have hit level 20 at the latest (you can learn it as soon as level 17). The mp boost is also a must have. Use ur self heal in between battles and use potions for in battles. Potions don't take away any time from your attacks.

There are three types of armor: armor, protector, and garment. Garment has the highest magic defense, armor has the highest physical defense, and protector is inbetween. Protector is a good beginners armor because it has a much higher mdef then armor and a much higher pdef then garment, and you run into both types of monsters equally. Know the price of all equipment in stores. 85% of the people on the streets sell equipment for more than the npc's. Be careful.

There are four categories of eace monster. There is a weak version, the regular version, a champion version, and a giant version. The weak version is easy to tell. It's name will have small, decayed, or old in it. Somethign that is a dead giveaway. One monster has slave in its name. Another has ghost, and one has broken, and another has young. The champion monsters are twice the size of the regular monster, and is often glowing, or a very distinguishable color. They are usually one level higher then the regular monster, but have a lot more hp. Then there are giants. They are the same level as champions, maybe one level more, but have a whole lot of hp. Think of them as raid bosses.

That should be enough to start you off. Happy gaming.