ZanathKariashi

It's a kind of ok guide, though I wouldn't recommend Smash. Rank F is all you need as a newbie (it has a almost non-existent stamina cost at rF and still does a respectable 200/300% damage), and because it's not CP dependent, you can r1 it anytime without issue. Otherwise you end up chugging a lot of stamina potions which you either have to farm/make or buy, sitting around resting with EM active wasting time, and running the risk of introducing yourself to that private little hell know as potion poisoning which requires a long time wasted sitting in the Zardine hotsprings to get rid of once it starts reducing your stats. The ideal set-up IMO, is to focus on 1hd + Guard Cylinder (tab 1) with some form of instrument (tab 2). This gives you melee (can be done with a wand as well to add magic into the mix as well) and the benefits of a small shield, + you can use alchemy for ranged attacking/pulling/ultility (Water Cannon (high damage), Wind Burst (another knockback option if your latency is too bad for countering with Windmill pre-rank 5 or firebolt takes too long to cast), and Summon Golem (mostly used as a distraction or 2nd pet) are all you really need, but freezing blast (Crowd control), flame burst (cone shaped AoE), and sand blast (Crowd Control) are all relatively easy to acquire and give extra niceties) which for a lot of the early game is solid damage even at rF, and a quick swap for a instrument for Lullaby and buffing Enduring/Battle as needed. I'd avoid ranking most combat skills above F, and instead focus on passives like the armor/shield mastery and enough play instrument to get Lullaby (mixed enemy rooms or multi-aggro enemies)/enduring melody (the god-song that should always be up between battles or against trivial enemies)/battlefield overture (for tougher enemies)...even at rF those songs work great (low CP, Low AP costs, big benefits), rest (low CP, bonus HP) relatively easy to skill up except for two books that require dungeons, but you're strong enough to take both of them at rF combat skills, and it just gets easier and as you get more AP to spare and can start mixing/matching skills to suit the challenge. And abuse the crap out of the beginner ability to reset your AP at will (once you have about 300 AP saved up (~160 is enough for most beginner skills), you have enough AP to take most skills in the game from F to r1, and at 600+ you can R1 any skill, but you will lose a little AP getting skills from novice to rank F, so make sure to do any dailies that give AP coupons/potions to help offset that. And once you get about 700 AP, stop resetting your levels on rebirth, and just switch your talent to whatever skill set you want to build up, and do that till you've at least r1'd all Combat power dependent skills and acquired any master titles for those skills you're interested in. Non-CP dependant skills are optional, but you run of CP skills or it's really easy to r1, then go ahead. Every day try to rank 1 at least 1 skill (Even intermediate spells/abilities can be rank 1'd within about 30 minutes as long as you have enough AP to purchase the ranks and where to find enemies of the appropriate Combat Power to suit your needs. Iria is a promised land of Combat Power gradients with most skills being able to be effortlessly rank 1'd just using enemies around Port Qilla, the flower mark, human mark, and Dragonbone Tomb. Passives like Armor mastery and shield mastery are extremely grindy so just work them up slowly while you train other skills, as before they're extremely cheap on AP and CP so you can afford to keep them max ranked at all times) , then reset your AP and spend your points into whatever build you use for quest/dungeon running. You want to focus mostly on skills that depend on Combat Power first, since those are MUCH easier to skill up when you can flush your Combat Power to low levels by dropping most of your skills and allows you to train them up on easier to kill enemies. Earning AP is easy.....but the stronger your character gets the harder CP dependent skills become to train, so it's best to train them NOW when they're easy and then simply re-buy them later once you have the AP to spare. You could spend Adventurer seals on this, but IMO, those are better spent on production professions post r9 (especially r8 weaving...seriously...%^$& that skill) or skipping the book requirement for cooking ranks 8-6, because the Cooking Dungeon is STUPID as %^&$. Light Armor and shield mastery can be r1'd for less then 30 AP each and have a negligible amount of CP (you can leave both at r1 when doing your skilling phase without impacting which enemies you can train on), since they'll give you a HUGE amount of defense/protection and make skilling/questing a lot easier. 60 HP is a lot when enemies can only hit you for 1-2 damage a pop.