A little help for a new tank and other questions

[Quinthom]

This forum is the only forum I can post in otherwise id be posting in the tank forum.
First I'm wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a solo leveling build.
Second I must admit over a couple of decades of MMO's I still don't understand macros and how to input them.
Could anyone help me out making macros for my early skills for the gladiator?
I've watched youtube tutorials and read many articles and im still left scratching my head.

Now for my other question. My friend invited me to play. However I can not get on his server. Ive spent the past week constantly checking the character creation thread which displays what servers are allowing character creation. The particular server in question "Gilgamesh NA server" is never open. It keeps new players who already have friends playing from trying out the game.
Is a character transfer the only way to get on that server?

[ManuelBravo]

Hmmmm solo level build you have some options;

Fast way; If you have access to POTD you can level up there with quick runs until around lvl 25-30depening on patience. You won't have to worry about gear until 25 if you have some experience.

Traditional: if you have MSQ done just do dungeons practice with choco.and so forth. Weekly quest. ect.

Macros can be pain if your not use to them, mainly used for notifications and such they help but to each their own.

[Rhais]

I would not macro any combat actions, they have uses, but using them for combat actions isn't one of them.

As far as making a character on Gilgamesh, you may want to try tonight as soon as the servers come back online. I have seen several people say they were able to make characters on usually locked servers right after maintenance.

[Quinthom]

Thanks for the replies. Right now im on a trial and only level 7 and i stopped playing because there is no point leveling a charcter up if im going to make one on another server. $19 character transfer isn't worth it for someone as low as level as I. Im waiting for payday to buy the game.
I've read all over the place right after maintenance is best so I will try that.

[EveK]

The main scenario quest is your best bet for initial leveling. If you need more EXP to access the next MSQ, try your Hunting Log.

I can't think of any particularly useful gladiator-specific macros for level 7. When you get provoke, a macro that announces what you're provoking in party chat can be useful in certain trials. As others hint, though, you'd want that to be separate from the actual execution of the action: for that, just use the action button directly. You'll likely perform far better if you make active decisions about which skill to use and when rather than trying to automate it.

Beyond all that, though, if there's something specific you want a macro to do, just ask and we can help.

As for character creation restrictions, while the page that announces them only updates every few hours, the actual restrictions can change much more frequently. So even if the page keeps saying no, actually trying to create a character may say yes. Balmung is reputed to have even more active players than Gilgamesh, and there are plenty of people that wrongly insist it's "always" closed. It's not; I frequently see new players that managed to create their characters there. Still, don't expect to manage to catch it; that $18 transfer might be the only practical option even if it's not actually the only option.

[Hasrat]

Be sure to have your character made and saved so you don't need to waste time on the character creation screen when trying to get in.

Leveling gear: When you hit 15ish in the story quest, I think you're directed to the Hall of the Novice, which will guide you through a few tutorials and throw some pretty good gear at you, including a ring that boosts exp.

[Sida]

As for character creation restrictions, my own experience is from making character to Phoenix some years ago but it seems to follow the logic: If the server is currently having a login queue (however brief they are), at that time the character creation is restricted. So even on high population server, it's possible to make a character during the server's off hours when majority of the server population is either sleeping or at school/work.

As for solo build, there is not much in the way of that in this game. The one thing you can choose to spec differently are the cross class skills but you only have options for those when you have leveled some other classes that give them (though this will have some changes in the coming expansion). For Gladiator, Protect and to some extent, Cure from the Conjurer early levels are handy when soloing (in party it's usually the healer who uses the Protect buff)

[Quinthom]

Thank you everyone for your input. Believe me if I can get on gilgamesh I will be grinding pretty heavy to level where my friends are at. I brought up macros because a lot of MMO's have made it a banable offense. I thought it was pretty neat the feature was built into the game. Pretty much what i've heard is they arent necessary and sometimes can be problematic in raids.

[CharlieBlake]

most MMOs have macros built into the game. What is usually ban-able is using outside programs to macro continuous actions. pretty much botting as they call it... farming money by having your character go through the actions of killing everything in a dungeon or open world for hours without actually being at the controls.

Also, make sure you have appearance data for the character saved for when you want to make your character, as said before the notes saying if a world is open for creation isn't actively refreshed, so, just as something opens it can close back up again based on congestion of new characters being made. So having that pre set data can help speed the process and make sure you can get in before the gates close again.

[Quinthom]

most MMOs have macros built into the game. What is usually ban-able is using outside programs to macro continuous actions. pretty much botting as they call it... farming money by having your character go through the actions of killing everything in a dungeon or open world for hours without actually being at the controls.

Also, make sure you have appearance data for the character saved for when you want to make your character, as said before the notes saying if a world is open for creation isn't actively refreshed, so, just as something opens it can close back up again based on congestion of new characters being made. So having that pre set data can help speed the process and make sure you can get in before the gates close again.

Oh ive saved the appearance data. First thing I did.