ManaSoul: Starting & Leveling Guide

Hello all,

This is a guide for new players who are getting into the game and want to get a good grasp of what the game has to offer. This guide will cover a few vital sections that will be crucial in helping you out in this game.

Please keep in mind at the time of this guide this game is still in early access, so the info provided is based off that. As the game continues to receive new content, there may be times where the info will be outdated.

This guide is written to the 0.1 version of the game, the info here should hold true for 0.2+ with some disclaimers provided as necessary.

When you first start playing the game you’ll be introduced to an early quiz that will determine what type of gemstone you’ll receive. The quiz will suggest one for you, or you can pick which one you want.

The gemstone is pretty crucial because it’s actually going to dictate the element you’ll be able to use. The options are the following:
– Jade (Wind)
– Ruby (Fire)
– Sapphire (Water)
– Topaz (Earth)

Currently, here’s a quick description to give a general overview of each element and what makes them unique. This may change as we get more spells
– Wind focuses on speed (low cooldowns, cast times, etc.). Has mobility boost
– Fire focuses on burns, and currently the only one that has positive buffs/cleanse
– Water is pretty jack of all trades being able to dabble in many things
– Earth focuses on stuns and shields

When you first start you may notice your UI might be messed up (at this time it’s not fixed yet). Currently the UI doesn’t scale properly and only works on 1920×1080, so I recommend swapping to this resolution by pressing escape and going to settings.

Let’s begin the tutorial quest. Once you’ve fixed your resolution you’ll notice you’re in a room for tutorial. Grab your items from the chest and head downstairs.

Before proceeding you should check your inventory by pressing I or opening the bag icon at bottom right corner of your game. Inside should be an item called “event talisman”, make sure to equip this as it provides you a 50% bonus experience gain.

Now, we will want to complete the tutorial quest so let’s talk to the academy guide NPC. Once you talk to him inside the tavern head outside and talk to him again. You’ll see yellow arrows on the floor, follow them to your next destinations.

You’ll notice the first area you’ll go to is the bank, but before you go there we will make a slight detour. In the image provided you’ll see a hidden chest, these are scattered around the world. Grabbing these rewards you with items and gold which will be crucial to get started. Grab this chest, then head inside the bank.

Talk to the academy guide, then head back outside to the general store with the potion icon. An important thing to note, you can buy upgraded potions here (they have infinite use) and scrolls for crafting skills. Continue the same thing, talk to the academy guide, head outside and finally follow it to the skill forge area.

This skill forge area has a lot of important NPC. The gem smith will let you upgrade/downgrade gems which you will need to craft skills. The gear grinder isn’t important right now, but in the future when you get epic rarity gear (purple) you can break them down into forgestones which will let you upgrade gears.

Quick note on gear, they are tiered by levels. First set of gear is level 5, then 10/15/20. When you upgrade gear, you’re upgrading their level tier from 5 -> 10, then 10 -> 15 and so on. This can be done with Gem Smith orvald.

You should talk to Spell Smith and explore the skills that is available to your element. You should look at spellforge I first (at the tiime of this guide, II hasn’t been released yet) and view the kind of skills available. You will see a large list of spells that are sorted by all elementalism first, then enchantment, evocation and finally martial. When you click on a spell you can see the required materials, and when you hover over the icon in the top right you get the item/spell scroll info that contains much more information.

You don’t need to decide now but you should decide to focus into one of these type of spells. Below is a generally overview of what each type of stat does:
– Martial, mostly focused on melee magic and close up damage
– Evocation, mostly focused on long range damage
– Enchantment, mostly focused on supportive and healing abilities
– Elementalism, a mixed utility class that generally has spells similar to martial/evo/enchant but focused on elementalism stat. Usually brings out the uniqueness of the element the most

Generally you pick one and funnel all your stats into it so you can learn all the spells to that stat available. There are 8 spell slots you can learn (and you can unlearn skills by right clicking, you should get rid of magic bolt).

Moving forward, continue following your tutorial quest to the last spot the NPC will be in. There is a hidden chest behind the spellforge building that you can grab.

Once you finish talking to the NPC he will reward you with an item called Arcane Lotus, you will need to put this on your hotbar to use it conveniently. You will be able to use it to tether to special terrain, and you will want this when exploring the world.

Now that you’re completed the tutorial your goal is to now work on leveling up. At this moment you have no resources to craft spells, and probably no idea where to go next. You can choose to stop reading this guide now and experience the game the cruel and hard way of figuring things out yourself, but if not here is what you can do to help improve your experience.

First, you can use /map in chat to view the map. We’re going to hit up sapphire path first as it has a lot of quest and chest that we can pick up to get resources quickly. Sapphire path is west of town, so start heading west (use the map if lost)

The rest of this guide is going to be pretty image heavy, what to do will be on the image. But our goal right now is to collect as much chest as possible, and pick up quest for completing later.

When you first enter into sapphire path, you will be greeted in a starting area with an area on top and bottom. Start with the top area above the path first. Ignore the cave for now, you will go there later.

South of the path there’s this Hendrick npc, grab his quest but complete it later.

Below him there’s a quest and a chest to pickup for now.

Head back up to the path and continue west across the bridge.

Once you grab the chest besides the goblin camp, head back south and grab the chest in the minimaze. You’ll see another chest you can’t reach yet, come back for this later.

Go south just a bit past the bridge and you’ll see an easy chest to the right, grab that then backtrack towards the camp with the quest you can’t get

In this next area you will need your arcane locus spell. Use it and position yourself under the diamond to tether to it. Activate the owl to grab that one chest earlier you couldn’t grab.

Head back where you came from where the traveling merchant is and follow the path up. There’s a couple chest you can grab around the area, and two quest. Grab the two quest from the weary hunter and fisherman (water adept is a later quest, you need to be level 9). We’ll be completing both of these quest soon as they just require us to explore some point of interest. This will spawn some fishing points and berries, grab the berry and ignore the fishing spots for now.

Head back south on the path (we will continue north soon). There’s a challenge here where if you activate the tombstone you have a short period to snag the chest that’s locked. Do this, and talk to the NPC nearby to gain some fast exp. Start heading south afterwards.

As you head south you should see a chest and a berry, grab these two and keep going south

Grab the two chest around the lake, and ignore the chest that seems to be reachable. We will grab that chest soon, but it’s not reachable at this moment. Once you grab all the chest here, start heading back up again.

As you head back up the lullaby berries will respawn, grab them again to have the quest completed. Turn in your quest for exp. Once you turn in the quest, follow the path south again. We’re going to grab that chest you couldn’t get, and complete the fishing quest.

Head back up and turn in the fishing quest. You can grab the two chest near the path or grab it later, doesn’t matter. For now head across the river to the right/east and activate the tombstone. It will be important later. There’s a blue crystal on a hill where a goddess statue sits, remember where this is. Later when you do the level 9 water adept quest you will need to revisit this crystal.

Head right/east and you will see two chest you can grab. Head north once you grabbed them around the right side of that goddess statue hill

There will be some stone you can activate, trigger in the right order to spawn a chest. Grab the hidden chest, and then head back. You will see another tether spot/bridge, ignore them for now. We will come back later which will save you significant amount of time. Head back to the other side of the river, back where we came from to the path.

Head north back on the path and you’ll see some chest you can grab (activated from the tombstone earlier). There’s a quest here to push a cow. Complete this quest, and make sure to talk to Bessie (the cow) again after completing the quest for an extra item reward.

Head right/east over the bridge and start talking the tether path. You’ll see it connecting to a bunch of islands

Continue following the tether points until you see a branch. Head west to the three chest. Going north takes you to a world boss which you will want to kill/farm later for event items.

Once you grabbed the 3 chest start heading backwards through the tether points again back to the path. Follow the past east again, and go north across the bridge, grab the chest there. After head down, tether downwards to grab the chest, then tether to the right.

Continue to the right, there’s four more chest we can grab here. Go across the bridge to find the last one.

At this point you should have resources to really get started now that the boring part is out of the way.

This next part of the guide will have info/tips on how to reach 11.

(Disclaimer: Do NOT do your bounty quest, save them for level 11)

(Disclaimer 2: Current we don’t have the update, but the bounty system is being reworked to eventually be an infinite loop for experience as a valid grinding method. If this change happens you can just farm bounty however you like instead of doing the method listed below to level up)

If you followed the first 5 level section, you should be level 5 or 6 depending on RNG (the exp you get from chest is random). Open your inventory to check out your resources

You will want to open up your memory orbs to get gear. This is the only way to get gear in the game. The orbs will reward you with gear that matches your level tier.
– Character level 1-9 will get level 5 gear from the orb
– Character level 10-14 will get level 10 gear from the orb
– Character level 15+ will get level 15 gear from the orb

At this time, level 20 gear doesn’t exist but will come in a future update. We can assume the pattern for how the gear level works will continue

Gear will either be rare (blue rarity) or epic (purple rarity). You can sell any gear you want to the store if you don’t need it (or store it for another character). I recommend, if you outgrow any epic gear (low chance to get) to grind it at the spellforge instead of selling it.

You should try to aim for gear equipped on your character that raises the main stat of your choosing. Upgrade your stats (if you see now + button, relog. Currently a bug) and get your stat as high as possible. Run to the store and craft your first skill, I recommend grabbing the earliest spell you can learn from your choosing + any extra strong damaging skill in your line if you have the scrolls for it.

Below is an example of my character I’ve been using for this guide, you can see her stats and the gear I was able to pull from the orbs.

Go craft your skills, grab the level 5 potion from the store, and once you’re ready, head back to sapphire path and complete all those quest we skipped. There are caves you can enter that you will want to clear. These are called delves or trials. (There are more but for now we’re focusing on these). Check the image below

What I’ve marked here is a guidance on how to level up. On the sapphire path side you should aim to clear all of these trials/delves while you are doing your quest at the same time. Let your quest naturally guide you to these points.

When you complete a trial/delve, a chest will spawn. These chest contribute to a weekly clearing which will reward you 1 guaranteed level. I recommend ignoring the first chest in the first cave and saving it for later so you can use this guaranteed level after 15+. The weekly resets on friday, so unless you’re playing on thursday or don’t have much time, leave 1 chest unclaimed for later.

Once you’ve completed the quest on sapphire side + cleared out most of the trials/delves, head south to ruby crag and do the same. I left one black skull unmarked because this delve might be a bit difficult at this time so we will come back to it later. This delve also contributes to the weekly, since we’re ignoring it we don’t need to worry about accidentally using the 1 guaranteed level.

You can get 3 guaranteed level a week from the weekly at this time.
– Sapphire path has 5 trials/delves
– Ruby crag has 7 trials/delves
– Jadewood has 6 trials/delves

You will also be rewarded a mana fragment which at this time doesn’t do anything but will have an important use in the future.

When you’ve exhausted your quest + trials/delves make sure to open your orbs and get more gear. You will end up around level 9/10 from doing this, if you’re still 8 no worries. To hit that 11, we’re going to have to do the classic MMO experience of grinding.

Trials give a lot of experience, so picking a trial boss and farming it over and over again is a very efficient way right now to hit 11 and relatively fast. There’s a couple of trial bosses you can pick, but my recommendation is the watcher eye boss (bottom left trial on the map in ruby crag). He’s a level 8 boss that’s very easy to dodge and avoid damage. Doesn’t have too much HP, and gives very good experience. If done right, you don’t need to waste too much time healing in between fights and can continue fights back to back. Grind this to 11, or any boss of your choosing

Congratulations, you’ve reached level 11 and completed one of the more time consuming part of leveling. Getting to 15 isn’t so difficult, so let’s talk about it.

In town there’s a bounty board (hopefully you didn’t do it yet) that you can pick up and kill trial bosses for lots of experience. At level 11 it activates the jadewood bounties which reward a tremendous amount of experience. You may need help from other players, but generally it’s not too difficult to do with crappy gear at level 11.

You can complete bounties currently 5 times a week, so you want to try and maximize the experience you can get.

(Disclaimer: Bounty system is being reworked to eventually be an infinite loop for experience as a valid grinding method. If this change happens you can just farm bounty however you like)

Talk to the NPC first, then talk to the board. These will be the possible choices:
– Jadewood ghost for around 15k experience
– Berserked goblin for around 20k experience
– Gust raptor for around 30k experience
– Jadewood stag for around 45k experience
– Lesser ent for around 60k experience

You get 3 rerolls/skips per week. Aim to reroll jadewood ghost/berserked goblin to get gust raptor or higher. If you already got them that’s solid. Next is killing those trial bosses. The only ones that will give you trouble is gust raptor and lesser ent, so here’s some strat to deal with all of the bounty bosses.

Jadewood Ghost/Berserked Goblin/Jadewood Stag
Thiese guy’s are a joke, you can outheal it with level 10 potion no problem.

Gust Raptor
This guy’s a bit trickier because he has a skill that hurts. You should be able to kill it before it kills you, but in the chance you are struggling run around and stall it for your potion cooldown. It will run out of mana eventually

Lesser Ent
This guy sucks because he hits hard and has a projectile skill that hurts. You will need to walk out of it to mitigate the damage you take. I recommend early on to hit it + kite it around until it runs out of mana. Make sure you hit it + let it hit you once in awhile to avoid it resetting. Use your potions to keep you alive. Once it’s out of mana, its super easy to kill. Can easily kill it and outheal it with your potion

There are some jadewood quest you should pick up. One becomes available at level 11 which requires you to collect garbage around the area. Next one is a survey mission, it wants you to kill all the bounty boss in order from jadewood ghost -> goblin -> gust raptor -> stag -> ent -> watcher (jadewood delve).

Make sure you leave 1 chest unclaimed until you hit level 15+ if you’re doing the survey quest

Last quest opens at level 15, which requires you to have Rajin’s world boss drop. So if at any time Rajin spawns, go smack it to get the drop and complete it for a significant hefty amount of experience.

I recommend completing all 3 quest (and leave 1 chest unclaimed), if done right will put you either level 16/17 when everything is said and done.

Once you hit 16/17, go finish all of the weeklies to hit 19/20 immediately. I don’t recommend trying to grind out 17 if you didn’t hit it, but in the event you do want to grind it out I recommend doing the event dungeons for experience. Otherwise, hitting 19 is fine as you will have another set of weeklies that’ll push you to 20 anyways

That’s pretty much the end of the guide, hopefully this guide has the info provided that help guide you on your ManaSoul journey. The game itself has a rich world to explore and a diverse set of skills for you to explore. At this point you can hybridize, make more characters, farm items, etc. Whatever you want to do is up to you. Some exciting things that we will see in the future contains:

– Level 20 content and gear
– Tier 2+ spells
– More world to explore
– More dungeons to do
– More PvE events
– Much more

Don’t feel the need to burn yourself on this game, play it casually and enjoy it. I recommend joining the discord to talk to people and keep up to date on the game, the developers are very friendly and respond to the community.

The game is in early access, so you have the chance to watch the game grow and be part of it’s history.

Thank you for reading this guide, and enjoy playing ManaSouls!