Almuric's 'How to Get to the Top Guide'

1. Important Concepts
2. Maximizing Rewards

There are several ways to have a character that is at or near the top in MPR, PR, and Score. This is an attempt at explaining these methodologies. This guide will be of most use to 'Newbies'.

Important Concepts

New User Bonus, NUB

When a new player starts, for six months he/she will get a bonus to Experience (XP) and money (CB$). This bonus starts off fairly high and goes down as the end of the six month period approaches. New users should make the most of this bonus. Spend your first few days getting acclimated, read some of the strategy guides, figure out what kind of character you want to play, create it and then fight.

If a new player creates a character their first day, and fights with that character using almost all of their BA every day, at the end of six months that character should have an MPR almost exactly equal to the highest MPR in the game.

Any new player should take maximum advantage of their NUB. They will never get it again. Most of the people at the top have fought continuously since the start of the game and to be fair to them, the only way to catch up is to fight continuously. New users should not waste their BA on anything other than fighting. Use a strategy that doesn't require much in the way of equipment and spend all your CB$ on buying BA.

Forging

Yes, Virginia, you can get to the top by forging. Ideally you will already have a character that you can use for forging. If not, start one, fight for a month or two, then switch to forging. Forge other people's items for CB$. Save all that you make. When you make enough money you will be able to buy one of the top characters, which go on sale all the time. Once you have bought your top character, continue to fight as much as possible and you'll stay at or near the top. (This may be the fastest way to the top. I could see where you could create a new character, fight with him for one month, then forge for one month and make enough money to buy a top character by the start of the third month.)

US$

You can buy a top character with real world money, usually via paypal. This is possible, but let me discourage you from doing this. It has never worked on a long term basis, and I've been here for two years. "Why?", you may ask. Because you have nothing invested in the character. Spending some mad-money on a character doesn't give you any of the real sense of satisfaction that you get from getting there with blood, sweat, and tears. If you didn't work at it to get it, you won't appreciate it and you'll effectively be the equivalent of 'burned out' in a couple of weeks. Nobody who's ever done this has stuck around for a long time. You can buy a character that's half-way there and then fight the rest of the way up. I did that on CB1 and that worked for me. Somebody who's been here for a long time can do that, and since to a large extent they've already put in their time, they can have a reasonable expectation of not losing interest.

Maximizing Rewards

General

The amount of XP and CB$ you get from winning a fight is a complex formula, largely random, but the largest factor is this: How high your opponent's Score is compared to your PR. To get maximum rewards fight people that you can beat consistently and have a very high score compared to your PR. Don't worry about your score, it's irrelevant for this calculation. There was a post a few months ago [1] that showed how to figure out what kind of average rewards you get for fighting a particular character. Use this information to maximize your rewards. You may find that a very few select characters give you the best rewards and you may want to concentrate on fighting mostly (or only) those characters. This factor is also shown as Challenge Bonus in your battle logs.

Clans

Clans are one of your best friends when it comes to getting rewards. You can get up to a 15% bonus by joining one of the top clans. In order to join one of these clans, you'll need to prove that you can put in some serious clan points yourself. Join a clan, any will do, then start clan fighting, which mostly consists of beating members of other clans. Once you've spent a few weeks doing that, you can apply to one of the top clans and if they have room they will gladly accept you. Do not underestimate the clan bonus. Being in a top clan can be the difference between staying at your spot in the rankings and slowly pulling away.

Use of Rentals and Loans

Since your task is to maximize profits in the short 6 month NUB window, it makes sense to try out the stuff in rentals as you devise your strategy. When you are pretty sure of your approach, but lack the money to buy new high-end stuff, you can always ask for a loan in the forum. In order to qualify for a loan, you ought to be a player of good standing, perhaps with a presence, howsoever minor, on the forum. Also, you may be asked for collateral; and the interest gets applied from the first day at weekly intervals. But, the NUB rewards are such that you can easily pay off loans in a very short time. Thus, this facility of loans enables you to buy powerful stuff that you'd otherwise not have been able to afford, and enables you to exploit your NUB phase to the fullest.