Training Combat Skills (New Player)

[Clesh 13]

Looking for advice to train FS in a way that isn't so... tedious. The people on my deed were so kind as to give me all sorts of helpful tips on how to efficiently level my FS to start out, but I can't stomach smacking the training dummy over and over, ya know? Maybe if it had a health bar instead of having to examine it to check damage, it might not seem so crazy, but when I forget about it because I've gone off to do something else instead of watch the dummy, it breaks. It also seems to be really slow skill gain. I was hitting it for at least 30 minutes and only went up to 3 FS from 1. Any advice on what else to do that would level my FS more quickly but not drive me crazy?

[Karrde 344]

Training dummies are the safest; however, aye they are incredibly slow. Mind-numbingly slow. Also works with early skill in each weapon.

 

One is better off going after low levels such as rats, chickens, cows, and anything else one would think is low. Avoid pheasants though, they will kick ass. As one can guess its trial and error figuring out what you can kill ingame, wurmpedia has some recommendations in its bestiary; however, these suggestions are very general for reasons I will get into.

 

Overall, see wurmpedia.com. Mostly player edited so accuracy can be meh, but it's your wurm bible. There's ALOT of information with this game, steep learning curve. Player myths are rampant too.

 

Mounts

Get a mount. Preferably a wild horse or donkey (donkeys for those low in body control), then a player-bred five speed trait horse. Some mounts like bred Hell horses are even better; though, more for exp players. Mounts allows you to move quickly even when burdened. You maintain decent speed even with zero stamina on you, not the horse (don't ask). Great for getting out of a pinch. They who run away, live to fight another day.

 

Healing

Raw cotton and wool works as bandages, and you will be using them ALOT early on. Cotton found by foraging/botanizing nodes early on, and one will want to set some seeds aside for farming. Wool sheared from sheep. Both work interchangeably as bandages, and there's a mildly complex system for mixing healing patches (See wurmpedia). Personally I prefer keeping an enchanted tooth, which I keep combining. Life transfer enchant on weaponry can be handy too. Weapon enchants is a whole thing on its own.

 

Gear

Generally speaking get the best you can, especially weapons and armor. Quality (QL) is king in this game with very, very few exceptions. You will be able to take on stuff that you could barely handle without. Also a lengthy, fairly indepth subject on its own.

 

Offhand plate armor combined with a mount is handy; though, don't overlook using other armors, especially until you get the ultimate dragon armor. Hide and scale are almost equally good; however, there's pros and cons with everything.

 

Due to the nature of the skill system its best to pick a weapon and shield then dedicate yourself to that before focusing on other weapons. Avoid archery until you have some exp under your belt; though, maxing out on an archery target is a decent way to get early body control.

 

Offhand weapons are a thing; however, the offhand weapon suffers major nerfs such as the swing timer. Shields are good to skill in, recommend either large wood or large metal. Also very handy in pvp for blocking arrows.

 

Skills

As mentioned prior, focus on a specific main weapon (and its skill) is advised due to how skillgain works. But at the same time, feel free to experiment and see what you like. Each weapon has its pros and cons; though, arguably there's some that tend to be best  in general. Can't go wrong with the classic longsword and shield, regardless of whatever weapon meta is ongoing... never know when the devs might patch something.

 

Axes and swords can get some early skill (usually maxed at 20 in each skill) by woodcutting with them.

 

While avoiding throwing too much skillgain information at once... The aspiring warrior may want to consider assembling an armory of silver weapons (damage bonus against "hunters" and silver isn't too bad to get) with one or two weapons that you focus on as your main weapon (these two can be circle of cunning enchanted ideally). Keep each weapon skill around 10 or 15 above the corresponding body trait used: strength or control, as skillgain in that body stat drops when you are too far over.

 

Ignore this on your main weapon since you are more after weapon skill there. This will be the weapon you invest your resources into in terms of enchants, materials, and QL.

 

Summary

This is an attempt to cover ALOT of ground, there's reasons why we have a dedicated wiki. Plus typing this out when I should be asleep, means I may have easily skipped over or missed something. Enchants is a good example.

 

Reader Beware.

 

Edited January 11 by Karrde

[Tristanc 571]

In case you didn't have it already, here's the link for the front page of the wurmpedia (aka 'the wiki').

Wurmpedia

 

This is really a must-have reference for all new players, and you can look up about any of the details (except food/drink recipes) in the links within it.

It's by no means just for new players, as veterans regularly make use of it too to look details up.

 

[Legios 497]

3 hours ago, Clesh said:

Looking for advice to train FS in a way that isn't so... tedious. The people on my deed were so kind as to give me all sorts of helpful tips on how to efficiently level my FS to start out, but I can't stomach smacking the training dummy over and over, ya know? Maybe if it had a health bar instead of having to examine it to check damage, it might not seem so crazy, but when I forget about it because I've gone off to do something else instead of watch the dummy, it breaks. It also seems to be really slow skill gain. I was hitting it for at least 30 minutes and only went up to 3 FS from 1. Any advice on what else to do that would level my FS more quickly but not drive me crazy?

Weapon with LT (preferably a 2 handed weapon), QL 80+ Studded/Plate/Chain armour, ability to ride a horse (not a cart), 10kg worth of cotton and then go out and smack the hell out of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING and yes I mean horses, cows, bulls, sheep, rams, pheasants and any aggressive creature (Although def be careful if you attempt to fight trolls and hell hound, they are the worst)

[Captain 33]

Just be careful if u get to half health bail with your horse and go heal.

Also as you gain weapon skill you unlock special moves depending on what you are targeting if in manuel mode. Automatic combat well it does it for you. I know i prefer Manuel fighting as i can move my attacks to where the mob is not blocking and i can choose when to use focus skill for a better combat rating buff..which is why ya ride a horse.

[Rustblade 57]

As already mentioned, get a LT weapon (No need to be higher than 80QL and definitely DONT go above 85QL)

 

Armor isn't that important at that point, you will run away from anything dangerous anyway. Studded leather is the best for pve, it's light, you can move fast, it's a bit easier to imp, repair, and has the best glance rate against crush damage compared to chain and plate (If you see a hellhound though.... RUN!). A 40QL set is more than enough for now if you don't get caught in a nasty situation.

 

Step 1

Hunt Dogs, Cats, Pigs, Sheep, Cows, Bulls, Donkeys, Rats, Deers

 

Step 2

Hunt Lions, Wolfs, Unicorns, Spiders, 

 

When near 70FS with maybe 60+QL armor you can try Scorpions and carefully test anything else

 

^^^Thats very generalized, your mileage may vary.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11 by Rustblade
typo

[Ekcin 2,425]

Well, everyone has their own techniques. For beginners without much access to resources like enchants, or silver weapons, the starter set still is a decent choice, given one gets hold of a donkey, and best some saddle and horse shoes. An impalong may provide better quality and enchants.

 

A mount is crucial as any wound causes a considerable slowdown making it practically impossible to run away from any stronger foe. When fighting aggressive mobs, a guard tower or the spirit guards of deeds, especially the starter town, will assist. Note that they will NOT help when you are in fight with a peaceful animal, some of them may turn out quite strong, boars and seals in particular. Spirit guards will come to help once one enters the deed.

 

To call assistance of a guard tower it needs to be no more than 20 tiles away from the tower, then making sure that the right mob is in target (best right click, choose "attack" to be sure if in slightest doubt), and say "help" or "guards!" (mind the exclamation mark) IN LOCAL chat (any other will not work but may cause ridicule). To be on the safe side, choose o->Settings->Keybinds->All and "help" or "Call for help" in the search field of the window, then press a key of your choice. I recommend something like "Ctrl-H" or "Alt-H" as just a letter like "H" may cause you shouting for help when trying writing in chat but miss the input field. Also, H is at least here the shortcut for the ingame wiki. The classic ways were and are F1 for console then entering bind <key, e.g. ctrl+h> "say help" .

 

Personally I always avoided hitting peaceful creatures. The FS gain for farm animals like sheep, horses, donkeys, fowl etc. is ridiculous, and boars and seals are dangerous without a chance to get tower or spirit guard help, and frankly, I hated killing peaceful creatures. I made good experience with fighting trolls alongside tower guards, though the FS gain is shared  with the other participants. But everyone's experience may differ.

[Kinganon 140]

Get a LT cast for your preferred weapon of choice,  as it will help restore your HP every time you deliver damage. This will have the greatest impact early on.

 

 When you can afford to, pay a leatherworker to craft you a studded leather armor set to improve your defenses. To compare defensive capabilities of armor types at various quality levels (QL), you can use Warlander's armor calculator at https://warlander.github.io/Wurm-Toolbox/#armor-calc

Edited January 11 by Kinganon

[Noevi 142]

I'll just add my short summary advice I tend to give.
 

• Prefer quality over expensive materials. I strongly advise sticking to iron. You'll need to get your weapon imped a lot if you do much hunting, especially as a new player with low repair skill. Stick to iron and keep it 80QL+, though I generally think 90QL is a good point to aim for. Silver imps can be nearly twice the cost, and 10% of low damage is just a tiny increase.
  • Weapon skill is largely based on damage done, and hitting the mob in the first place. At high skills there's some merit to dropping the QL a bit.
• Pick a weapon you like, for more "optimal":
  • 2 Handed: Staff, Huge Axe, Halberd are "up there", but honestly for PvE you're not really going to notice slightly lower damage.
  • 1H + Shield, Longsword and medium maul are good starters, sickle does more damage but has a CR penalty which doesn't seem great for new players.
• Prioritize A good weapon with enchants. A Basic 90QL, 90+ Casts is going to run you around 5-6s, and will make a huge difference. LT is a massive help when starting, so is Nimbleness and CoC. Mind Stealer can be skipped if low on money.
• For armor:
  • Studded has slightly lower defences against some/most damage types, but is faster movement and close enough.
  • Chain is slightly more defensive, but is noticeably slower in movement. Low QL Chain is bad.
  • Plate is high defences, very slow movement speed. I like to call low ql plate a casket, it'll trap you in place while also not defending you enough to surive. Get it decent QL or use Studded.
    • As an Example, 40QL Plate provides only 48% base reduction, while slowing you just as much as 90QL plate, which would provide 69% reduction. Shoot for 70QL Minimum.
• Always fight on a mount in the beginning. As long as you're mounted dying should mainly happen due to disconnecting or being afk, run away before you hit ~40% health, heal up with your LT weapon on some sheep/horses/cows etc or use cotton to bandage.

Once you've got the basics, some 70fs and an enchanted weapon with some basic skill in it, combat is mostly trivial outside of rifts and uniques, so don't stress too much over weapon types and damage numbers.

Edited January 11 by Noevi

[Clesh 13]

Thank you all! This is fantastic information to have. I'll get started smacking critters today!

[Camelrider 214]

People don't know what they don't know. If you want to optimally grind it; here's how.

 

All you need for the initial grind (because im assuming you're a weaker character) is going to be the fastest horse you can use (not tamed, not HH), a large metal or large wooden shield with COC (will help you for later grinds), a plate set (definitely not studded leather. Plate has the highest DR and you are mounted, so the movement issue is nil. Web armor casts help a lot too, definitely DON'T use aosp), and a sickle with nim/LT/coc. (This enchant set isn't optimal for actually weapon grinding, but, sickle isn't too good for stats and you are too weak to kill most things efficiently so it is necessary to have LT on your weapon. Plus sickle is busted good; but ultimately any 1H weapon will work.) There is also no need to go any higher than 85-90ql. Above 90 is a scam and a meme.

 

1. Run around and kill literally everything possible for you to kill until 70fs. This should take no more than 8 hours if you know where to hunt on your server.

 

After this, I recommend training your shieldskills. You might ask why? It's because shields are actually terribly imbalanced and trivialize all the PvE content in this game (not that it was that hard before), but having the bonus of just not really ever getting hit while you grind other weapons (insane for stats) is pretty good.

 

You want a pen of 15 bison and 15 hell scorpions, your large shield (the other shields simply are weaker mechanically,) with CoC, and your plate set from earlier.

 

2. Sit on each bison, one by one, for 15 minutes each on sleep bonus and any other skill bonuses you can until you hit 50 skill in your chosen shield. Once you do that, repeat this process with hell scorpions until whatever skill you want but at a minimum, 70. You do 15 because they have a timer when you stop getting gains from one mob, and 15 is enough so that when you do every mob; the first one has reset.

 

Now we can start training weaponskills. There are a few things to note here. The first is the rule of character stats; if you are trying to min max everything (and personally, I don't think this is fun, but to each their own) you never want the skill in your weapon to be higher than 10 points above their relevant statistics. If a weapon trains body strength and you have 40 strength, you don't want your weapon skill to exceed 50 because you will stop getting optimal gains for your statistics (and don't forget being a follower of Magranon for +15% skill gain to Fighting subskills, all “weapon” and "Shield" skills & their subskills, and Archery & its subskills as well as +2.5%-10% skill gain to Body Strength, Body Control scaled by alignment, and +1 Offensive CR. I personally ignore this, but as weaponskills are some of the best stats in the game; I wanted you to know this. I'm instead going to recommend that you instead grind weapons in such a way that gives you access to as much content as possible. From this point on, no more life transfer or iron weapons for grinding. Instead, you want silver or adamantine venom weapons. Silver makes it hit harder against certain mobs, adamantine makes it hit harder against everything. (Bigger the hit, more the damage up to a certain point.) The venom enchant you do not need any specific power, you can use a 1 power enchant or a 0 power enchant even; we simply want venom because it removes the glances which means that instead of your hit being a hit, a miss, or a glance; it's just going to be a hit or a miss which is going to exponentially up your gains.

 

3. Finish your chosen 1h weapon off to 90 (or whereever you want to stop)

4. Pick up a 2h weapon and kill everything (same enchants. If you are 60+ body on SFI, what you want is probably going to be a 10k bloodthirst frost imbue staff for unique hunts in the end, if you are less than 60 body; you are going to want to use a huge axe without frost imbue in the end, so preferably train one of these weapons).

 

Now you have ease of combat in unique hunts and in non unique hunts. After this, just kill everything to whatever skill you want in whatever weapon you want using either nimbleness/venom/coc (if the weapon is a 3 swing timer) or woa/venom/coc (if the weapon has more than 4+ second swing timer, so like all your 2 handed weapons, medium maul, that sort of thing)

 

5. If you care about archery, this part is simple. High QL nimbleness/bt/coc bow. High QL arrows. Shoot bison, enjoy.

 

---

 

Some minor details might be wrong if there have been any recent changes (i haven't been super active in about half a year), but should get you by -- also have some respect for your time and don't seek advice on jewels from a brickmaker. If you want combat advice, seek out the PvPers in discord. Typically they will be more than happy to give you updated information on how to grind anything related to combat the most effective way.

 

Also, if you play on SFI: reach out to me and I will give you all the equipment you need, enchants, and imps for free.

 

  Q&A/i'm mean time:

 

On 1/11/2024 at 12:46 AM, Karrde said:

Training dummies are the safest; however, aye they are incredibly slow. Mind-numbingly slow. Also works with early skill in each weapon.

 

One is better off going after low levels such as rats, chickens, cows, and anything else one would think is low. Avoid pheasants though, they will kick ass. As one can guess its trial and error figuring out what you can kill ingame, wurmpedia has some recommendations in its bestiary; however, these suggestions are very general for reasons I will get into.

 

Overall, see wurmpedia.com. Mostly player edited so accuracy can be meh, but it's your wurm bible. There's ALOT of information with this game, steep learning curve. Player myths are rampant too.

 

See Sindusks combat guide for the mechanics of combat, he made the system; none of it is a myth. Do not use a training dummy ever, it takes away your stat, weapon, and shield progression and takes much longer; plus is boring.

 

Quote

Mounts

Get a mount. Preferably a wild horse or donkey (donkeys for those low in body control), then a player-bred five speed trait horse. Some mounts like bred Hell horses are even better; though, more for exp players. Mounts allows you to move quickly even when burdened. You maintain decent speed even with zero stamina on you, not the horse (don't ask). Great for getting out of a pinch. They who run away, live to fight another day.

 

Do not use a hellhorse or unicorn unless you are a fo priest because mobs attack it and you waste your time healing. Do not use a donkey either (you can hit 21 bc off an archery target after some fletching in less than 8 hours of play), you will waste your time. Just get a decent 4 speed horse. If you're boujee, a 5 speed because you get all the benefits of the hellhorse with none of the negatives.

 

Quote

Healing

Raw cotton and wool works as bandages, and you will be using them ALOT early on. Cotton found by foraging/botanizing nodes early on, and one will want to set some seeds aside for farming. Wool sheared from sheep. Both work interchangeably as bandages, and there's a mildly complex system for mixing healing patches (See wurmpedia). Personally I prefer keeping an enchanted tooth, which I keep combining. Life transfer enchant on weaponry can be handy too. Weapon enchants is a whole thing on its own.

 

Just always carry an LT weapon. You should never have to make a healing cover in this game, again, a waste of time.

 

Quote

 

Gear

Offhand weapons are a thing; however, the offhand weapon suffers major nerfs such as the swing timer. Shields are good to skill in, recommend either large wood or large metal. Also very handy in pvp for blocking arrows.

Mechanically, it works; but you are better off fighting with no weapon than a single offhand weapon (quite literally). Offhands attack starting in combat round 2 (~20 seconds into the fight), and they have a 50/50 chance at random to actually calculate swing timer.

 

On 1/11/2024 at 2:44 AM, Captain said:

Just be careful if u get to half health bail with your horse and go heal.

Also as you gain weapon skill you unlock special moves depending on what you are targeting if in manuel mode. Automatic combat well it does it for you. I know i prefer Manuel fighting as i can move my attacks to where the mob is not blocking and i can choose when to use focus skill for a better combat rating buff..which is why ya ride a horse.

 

Do not use autofight ever. Special moves waste your time, and your stamina. There are small use cases for those in PvP combat; using them outside of PvP is simply prolonging your grind for no reason.

  

On 1/11/2024 at 3:02 AM, Rustblade said:

Armor isn't that important at that point, you will run away from anything dangerous anyway. Studded leather is the best for pve, it's light, you can move fast, it's a bit easier to imp, repair, and has the best glance rate against crush damage compared to chain and plate (If you see a hellhound though.... RUN!). A 40QL set is more than enough for now if you don't get caught in a nasty situation.

  

On 1/11/2024 at 3:54 AM, Kinganon said:

When you can afford to, pay a leatherworker to craft you a studded leather armor set to improve your defenses. To compare defensive capabilities of armor types at various quality levels (QL), you can use Warlander's armor calculator at https://warlander.github.io/Wurm-Toolbox/#armor-calc

 

If you are on a horse and running away from anything dangerous, why would you need to use studded leather? The mount determines your movement speed. Just use plate. DR is king in PVE combat.

 

 

 

Edited January 14 by Camelrider

[McGarnicle 1,463]

I would even say if the ql of your weapon and armor are 50ql, you will be fine. The important stat is getting some Life Transfer on your weapon. Even 50 to 70 LT will make a huge difference in your ability to kill things.

[Karrde 344]

Keep in mind a new player asking for advice in the forums is unlikely to have ready access to high-end equipment and enchants.

 

Let alone get all this to survive the first few days in Wurm. Let alone the time to get to know people.

 

Granted money paves many paths.

Edited January 14 by Karrde

[Camelrider 214]

26 minutes ago, Karrde said:

Keep in mind a new player asking for advice in the forums is unlikely to have ready access to high-end equipment and enchants.

 

Let alone get all this to survive the first few days in Wurm. Let alone the time to get to know people.

 

Granted money paves many paths.

 

i said id provide all the gear for free

[Yesirn 166]

If you're on NFI I'd be willing to make an 85ql plate set for you free of charge.

[Tristanc 571]

Personally I'd not recommend plate armor for a newish player who's not settled in with an established deed with appropriate skills and workshop and mounts.

 

Studded leather (lighter than metal armors for speed in moving) or chain mail would be my recommendations.  Studded first as you can take your starter leather armor and add metal studs to it to turn it into studded armor.

In the long run, yes enchantments and much higher quality are all desired but I think the player was asking about for the present.

 

Getting prem so you get the characteristics up to be able to ride a horse is a very very useful goal for fighting.  As was said, if you're fighting from horseback and run out of stamina, you can still ride away as fast as your horse will carry you if the fight turns against you.  First aid your wounds with cotton or wool, apply healing covers to the ones that have more damage, then you can ride back and resume the fight.

 

[Camelrider 214]

1 hour ago, Tristanc said:

Personally I'd not recommend plate armor for a newish player who's not settled in with an established deed with appropriate skills and workshop and mounts.

 

Studded leather (lighter than metal armors for speed in moving) or chain mail would be my recommendations.  Studded first as you can take your starter leather armor and add metal studs to it to turn it into studded armor.

In the long run, yes enchantments and much higher quality are all desired but I think the player was asking about for the present.

 

Getting prem so you get the characteristics up to be able to ride a horse is a very very useful goal for fighting.  As was said, if you're fighting from horseback and run out of stamina, you can still ride away as fast as your horse will carry you if the fight turns against you.  First aid your wounds with cotton or wool, apply healing covers to the ones that have more damage, then you can ride back and resume the fight.

 

 

he has two people willing to gear him on either cluster, and a deed, and asked for a better way to grind. i gave him the most optimal (efficient, and fast) way to grind.

Edited January 15 by Camelrider

[SweetSerenade 183]

3 hours ago, Yesirn said:

If you're on NFI I'd be willing to make an 85ql plate set for you free of charge.

 

Likewise on NFI can help with a decent weapon, or chain if you prefer that (I would recommend plate though)

[Kulthar 76]

Idiots not so wordy guide to combat training in wurm :

>chop tree with weapon of choice to 20 weapon skill
>kill livestock and maybe spiders til 20 fighting
>now kill everything besides trolls and hellhounds til 45 AND GO TO RIFTS and BLAST SLEEP BONUS ! 
>now kill everything besides trolls til 63

Only use Aggressive. I would recommend a halberd, because if I could go back in time I would have chosen a halberd instead of the huge axe. But any weapon you can cut down trees with would work great with this system.

 

[Karrde 344]

5 hours ago, Camelrider said:

 

i said id provide all the gear for free

 

Was not referring to just you; though, such is certainly helpful when available.

[Rustblade 57]

16 hours ago, Camelrider said:

 

 

If you are on a horse and running away from anything dangerous, why would you need to use studded leather? The mount determines your movement speed. Just use plate. DR is king in PVE combat.

 

 

 

 

Simply because ###### happens, and while armor may not be that important as I said, it would be wise to wear that 40QL set. The movement bonus of the armor is a plus for when you are NOT in combat, although in very rare occasions it may help you there too. No need to change and move armor sets around.

 

And no, DR is not king, it's nice, it's good, and that's it.

 

Advising a new player starting out with 3FS to use that 20+ kg plate armor isn't good advice, been there done that, awful advice.

 

 

Quote

1. Run around and kill literally everything possible for you to kill until 70fs. 

.....

.....

 

mic drop

[Ekcin 2,425]

I agree. Camelrider's writing is a fine guide for newly premed alts of an experienced if not veteran player wanting to get that alt into PvP as soon as possible. For new players, it is nearly completely worthless. Plate is the worst idea for a beginner who needs to roam the area to explore, learn locations, and run from opponents too strong. As to FS, I just checked my logs. First fighting related entry (I started Dec 17 2017 but started logging Jan 17 2018) was "Fighting increased to 18" Jan 18, 2018. I reached 59 in September, and 70 Nov 22, 2018. All that time, I had no enchanted weapons or gear, but roamed most of the area from G13 Xanadu over land to Maes Knoll (on feet), Glasshollow, Linton. Some of my mob fights were epic adventures, many fairly inglorious hit and run, but certainly much fun.

 

Fighting always was a sideshow for me, and it should be for new players who want to explore Wurm independently. Many of the advices are sensible to some extent but most are just misleading unless someone wants to optimize FS as soon as possible.

 

Also I disagree to "kill literally everything possible for you to kill" as a general advice. Certainly, for beginners, even puny farm animals make some FS increase. Yet it is ridiculous compared to even fighting a troll alongside tower guards or templars. And the community aspect has to be considered. Especially in densely populated areas in NFI, where players already complained about sprout cutting close to their deed (as weird as that may be considered) it is the best way to make enemies to kill everything in populated areas, also depriving newbies the only mounts available, namely donkeys and cows.

 

Building up fighting experience as a beginner is a complex thing, far away from - otherwise certainly interesting - minmax schemes.

 

Edit: That all said, I recall how we joked about "how to kill a noob?". The best way proposed was to give him outstanding weapon and armour so that he loses the sense of risk and vulnerability .. 😎

 

Edited January 15 by Ekcin
addendum

[Carmichael 688]

If you need gear on NFI or SFI I'll hook you up as well. Including horse gear. 

 

For armor, studded is good, but I would only use it at around 50 fightskill. Or if you don't have anything else to use. But plate is the way to go because the damage reduction is the biggest thing you want especially if you're mounted.

 

Pick a weapon you want to use, I'd recommend a medium 1 handed weapon like medium maul, large axe, or longsword first. 

 

General rule of thumb though when grinding fs mobs wise:

Kill all blue and easy mobs first:sheep, cows, dogs, deer, wolves, and rats

You do that until about 20-30 fs. Skip bison because they take took long to kill, save them for archery.

From that point you can start adding the "medium tier mobs" aka bears, cave bugs, spiders, hell horses and goblins.

You're expanded list should easily take you to about 60ish fs.

Once you hit even 50, preferably 60 you can add scorpions, crocodiles, and hell hounds to your list.

Skip the trolls as well, they do too much damage to you, and wreck your gear pretty quickly. Even past 70. Grind your archery on the trolls. If you follow this "list" you'll have 70 fs in no time. This is the fastest way to do it without having to stop and heal as much. Especially if you have a LT weapon. You're fairly balanced the whole way up to 70.

 

Once you're done with fight skill. Like I said post 70 fs if you focus on weapon skills it'll gradually go up since it kind of hits a brick wall and the gains slow down a lot after 70.

 

I would definitely pick any shield to shield train on as well. But if you only want 70 shield skill you can do brown bears from 40-70 quite easily. Same way @Camelriderstated with the explanation. Bison up to 40 as well. You want the 70 fs because the CR is what helps you. You don't get completely destroyed and it helps you block a little bit more having the fightskill to back up your shield skill.

 

For archery your main focus is trolls and bison. Both have a low glance rate so you'll hit often = more skill. And they don't move around much, if at all. You can literally do archery this way all the way to 100 skill. I wouldn't waste your time or arrows on anything else.

 

Edited January 15 by Carmichael

[Ekcin 2,425]

I cannot fully agree to the advices to avoid trolls. Of course a troll in one to one combat is not the easiest foe, but an interesting and challenging one. I soloed my first trolls (mind I was new to the game) in the FS 50s or high 40s, being badly mauled, often retreating and healing up, But it was real fun, and no LT weapon at that time.

 

My mag priest did that in the low FS 20s, but ok, he had fireheart for extra dmg, and focused will to heal up. My Fo priestess is at FS 36 and has killed a number of trolls, yet both have good studded and LT weapons. Hell hounds are an even worse threat at lower levels due to their speed, high damage dealt, and graceless pursuit with high agro level. Best knowing where the next guard tower is. Later in game they are puny foes as they take as much or more damage they are dealing.

 

So it all depends on what one expects: Getting FS up as fast as possible is certainly a valid objective. Standing up to challenges, mainly with the means one has on ones own is another one.

That said, thanks for all the hints, whether one agrees, follows or not. Especially the bits about archery are interesting.

 

Edited January 15 by Ekcin

[Karrde 344]

For a long time, trolls were the primary means of gaining more skill and power once you reached a certain plateau. Let alone being really good dominated/rebirthed pets in plentiful supply.

 

Granted this was of far more strategic importance when Fighting skill was usage-gained versus the current kill-gained.  Especially when they spawned in a specific area that would become fought over, and a host of other changes over the years.

 

Still good at high levels for certain goals such as archery. The faster healing can still make for even okay melee target dummies, if you have em properly secured. There's other options that can be more workable depending on one's infrastructure and friends.

 

Atm unfortunately archery in pve is kinda meh in usefulness. It only really sees some practicality in pvp.

 

Personally I would love for this to change. Flying mobs, more mobs with ranged attacks (ala rifts), or whatever.

Edited January 15 by Karrde