Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.
The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
You need to grind money incessantly and level transmutation. Transmutation is not optional, augmentation is. This is not necessarily a fun stage of the game, you need a LOT of money and can't even farm good content yet.
GK requirements: 400-500 armor. And 3k burst damage over 4-5 moves or lower damage and a couple of heals. You will be leeching off of others even if you meet my "requirements", please disclose your weak status to the leader. The worst thing that can happen while leading is you start fighting and realize you have 3-4 leeches.
Cooking/gourmand is not to be overlooked. I recommend sushi prep for meals as the mats are easy to get especially for something with income from surveying and then find a snack you like and get a bunch of them. The power and health bonuses add up. Meditation and calligraphy can also provide buffs pretty easily depending on your needs. As a mostly solo player I know your pain and really it's just about what excites you, find the path of least resistance/most enjoyment.
Transmutation as mentioned can be a big help - shamanic infusion (especially since the update) in place of augmentation might be a faster gain. Shamanic Infusion skills that increase armor and health especially. If you're looking at transmutation www.gorgonexplorer.com can help you theory craft what you're looking to roll for.
Treasure Cartography is an unsung way for quickly gearing up to around 60 (might be 50 - not 100% sure) as you can do it without engaging in combat at all.
As mentioned there are dailies - if you're in a guild it might be worth looking for a group to do a daily slowly. Most daily groups rush through so quickly that it's hard to properly loot, but with a small group of friends you can take your time.
Also keep in mind what foes you're strong/weak against. When I was leveling battle chemistry I loved Ilmari because extra skin mutation made me strong against grimalkin. Leveling hammer, not so much - so I moved to Rahu wilds and picked off foe by foe because crushing is good against undead.
1) get a good rolled 50 gear set (skippable if your guild laughs at GK and can drag you along)
2) max out trans/aug to roll on armor and mod it as desired (aug is skippable if you know people who have it and can rip mods)
3) get GK armor or crafted max enchanted armor.
4) Wait many moons to fix said armor via rolling. Currently this may be many many weeks...
Note: Treasure Cartography is super cool and I just recently got to where I made like 30 Ilmari maps (ranging 30-40 something). The top end maps in Etibule were giving me 3-4 pieces of level 50 gear including yellows. Let me emphasize that you can get yellow knights armor (tied for highest chest armor with gazluk gear) this way.
But you need a ton of makes to make it work. So get digging or vendor diving.
Follow up on TC - There are other means to get eltibule maps than digging up corpses/vendor diving in reliable ways. This can be uncovered through careful reading during the quest progression:
Spoiler:
The weird statues give 2 maps each per moon phase. They take specific items for sacrifice half of which can be discovered from a book in game
- all of the items are on the wiki for TC. The statues rotate what they take clockwise each moon phase change, but this will give you 4 maps of each of the 4 tiers for 16 total (per character) - not the MOST exciting skill in the game, but certainly an interesting one and can get you good money/interesting items
Leatherworking is a fantastic way of getting good gear but if you are at all money-conscious about leveling it (i.e. do leatherworking work orders), it can take you some months to get to a point where you can make gear that's good enough for your high-level skills. On the plus side, once you reach that point you'll never need to worry about being undergeared for any skills ever again.
My advice for leatherworking would be to do work orders when you can. Rubywall crystals are the cheapest way to make gear that requires gems but if you are lucky enough to have a work order to make gear that you might actually want to wear yourself, make sure to use the specific gems for your skills. For example, if you have an order for 10 quality leather coats, make 11 total with mods for your skills, equip the best one for yourself, and turn in the other 10 for the work order. (Just make sure the gear you want to keep is equipped or in a loadout when you turn in the order to prevent the order from snagging it up.)
If you are able to use a staff or club, you may also want to look at carpentry for crafting yourself a nice weapon. (Crafting for other weapons or jewelry is not in the game yet.) Again, it's not necessarily going to be fast to level, but a very reliable source of gear once leveled up.
Transmutation is very helpful - the Wiki transmutation page is great. It took me a few re-reads to get the concept but it feels pretty natural now.
Every time the topic of level 60 gear comes up, I say Gazluk wolf cave and nobody else does, so I'm not sure if that makes me crazy or inspired or what. I want to say I usually head to the Tower View Cave in the mid to high 50s, with purplish level 50 gear. In my opinion, the real problem is just getting there, the cave itself is very pleasant to solo. Yes, I die, but the first chest is easy to reach and the other two are doable with some focus. If there are other players there, I can reach the chests faster, if I'm the only one there, I can kill more wolves for loot and xp. Win/win. Loot throughout the cave is 60-65, although it seems a bit jewelry heavy.
For navigating the Gazluk outside to get to the cave, winter gear or a blanket or fire helps but is not strictly required as long as you know where you are going and have pretty decent movement speed. The map on the Wiki shows the cave entrances - once you are inside, you no longer have to worry about the cold.
A couple more comments on Gazluk:
Spoiler:
If I'm worried about my body heat, I will usually die when entering Gazluk to reset my heat to max, then sprint for the cave I want. The New Prestonbule cave has friendly NPCs (including vendors and a bit of storage), the Tower View Cave is the easiest cave to start farming for gear.
Both caves may have some mobs hanging around near the entrance; don't stop to fight, just zone in asap. I find my key bindings really helpful here if the cave entrance is covered in nasties: I'll spam my key for "Select Next Non-Combatant" while running until I have the cave entrance selected, then I run up to the cave and hit "Use Selected" to zone in - much smoother if there's no mouse target and clicking involved. I'd recommend being very close to the entrance before hitting the Use button - the AI pathing near the entrances can be a bit erratic and you don't want it to slow you down to get chewed up by the six mobs that have been chasing you.
Note also that the tower opposite the Tower View cave is both warm and a safe zone. Mobs will not follow you inside, so you should be able to stand in the tower and lose aggro. I've had occasional problems with range attack mobs not resetting right away, but they should lose interest in you eventually.
Once you are more comfortable in the zone, you can use the NPC Outpost in the northeast to buy some racial slot jewelry that will allow you to stand near glowy yellow crystals without getting sick. The crystals give off heat, so they are a great spot to warm up if you are too cheap to buy firewood.
Oh, and make sure you have food buffs going when running around outside - it helps a lot if something starts hitting you or you are taking frostbite damage but are almost close enough to reach a warm spot.
Originally Posted by Fhen
Appreciate the info thanks. I only play very of peak and due to some other things will probably only be soloing. I don't mind doing it all myself up until whatever point I am unable. Is there a gear upgrade path for example go here until you get good 40's gear which then allows you to go here to get 50's gear etc?
Gear progression is still a work in progress in the game. I usually spend a lot of time in Kur Tower which gives very nice 40ish gear ( I want to say I've gotten 45-50 level pieces in there too, but they are rare). The zombies in Kur Tower tend to come in groups but can be solo'd and in the lower level of the Tower, the mobs are far enough apart that they can be fought one or two at a time. No chests there, but I get very steady gear drops from the regular mobs. ( I never really warmed up to the Kur Wolf Cave for some reason - it's a bit out of the way and the elites at the back are really intended for groups.)
After Kur Tower, there is this long stretch where it feels easier to group, until you finally have the Gazluk caves as soloable 60-65 again. We'll be getting more content in that bare spot eventually ( and the sewers are a start if a bit rough right now, imo).