Lineage W is NCSoft’s latest medieval fantasy MMORPG in the Lineage series of games that started way back in 1998 and is considered as one of the top-grossing video game franchises of all time. Lineage W serves as the proper sequel to the original Lineage and while currently available only on Android, iOS, and PC through the NCSoft Purple platform, console players specifically on the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch will also soon be able to join in on the fantasy adventure.
Lineage W takes all the gameplay aspects and features fans of the franchise have loved and enjoyed over the years across all its incarnations, yet still offers plenty of new experiences to offer not just for complete beginners but for experienced and veteran players as well.
The mobile platform version goes beyond expectations in terms of both graphics and performance and despite offering plenty of content for multiplayer action and adventure, the story and quest progression system for the single player campaign is certainly something worth diving and immersing one’s self into.
Despite the detailed tutorial sessions and auto mode that makes adventuring fairly easy and convenient, Lineage W holds plenty of unique features and gameplay mechanics that can altogether seem overwhelming for first time players. If it is your first time to dive into the world of Lineage W and have not played any of its previous incarnations, then check out our Lineage W beginner’s guide below, not just to start your adventure right, but to also progress and strengthen your character fast and efficiently!
1. Choose The Best Class For You
One of the aspects of MMORPGs, as well as any RPG with a class selection feature, that contributes to making the adventure and overall experience an immersive one is attributable to these character classes. Players can feel a more individualized experience through the characters they use and customize, giving a little more freedom as far as having choices are concerned on how your character will turn out as well as how that affects your progression across various quests and challenges.
For total beginners in an MMORPG environment, it can be expected of you to wonder about which, from among the available classes in Lineage W, is the best one to pick. There could be tier lists or other kinds of guides that would rank down each character class following certain considerations. However, just like in any MMORPG out there, we can safely say that Lineage W maintains balance across each of the available character classes.
In this sense, it is best to pick the character class that most suitably reflects your preferences and play style. To help you secure a little more understanding of each class’ unique strengths and limitations, we will provide a short gist of what each one specializes in.
Monarchs are perhaps the most unfamiliar character class for even experienced RPG players that are new to the world of Lineage. As far as stats and skills go, Monarchs do not really excel in either offense or defense and is a lot likely to have a more challenging adventure on its own. Monarchs, however, are the only characters that can establish a Blood Pledge, which is essentially a guild system in the world of Lineage W.
Related: Lineage W Class Guide: An In-Depth Look at Each Character Class’ Strengths and Limitations
Monarchs are expectedly the best commanders in the battlefield as their abilities involve empowering Blood Pledge members with various buffs. Monarchs are similar to Knights in terms of weapons they can wield, which includes all melee weapon types as well as bows.
Knights serve as the most basic class in Lineage W and comparable to warriors in conventional RPGs. Although largely built for being a melee combat expert, Knights are also able to equip bows. Knights have decent offensive capabilities but excel tremendously in terms of defensive strength. Players who want higher survivability across solo adventures and challenges are most suitable to take on the Knight class. As far as team endeavors are concerned, you can expect Knights to serve as the team’s tank and be at the front lines.
Although Elves in Lineage W can be considered comparable to archers and rangers in other RPGs, choosing an Elf class in Lineage W can actually lead to different builds more than other classes. Elves can equip a sword or dagger in addition to bows, although their skills are conventionally more suitable for ranged combat mastery. In addition to being able to deal high damage outputs with long range attacks, Elves also have support skills that can augment allies’ spell potential as well as serve as a counter against enemy spellcasters with their long range attacks.
Last, but definitely not the least, are Mages who are the top DPS units in the world of Lineage W. Like Elves, Mages also excel in launching long range attacks and share the same weakness in terms of having relatively low defensive attributes. In addition to large damage capabilities, however, Mages can also take on a support unit role with debuffs against enemies and healing for allies.
In addition to the basic strengths and limitations of each character class in Lineage W, a rock-paper-scissors mechanics also applies to the latter 3 classes. Knights can typically easily survive an Elf’s attacks and will make short work on them once they fall within reach. Elves that have long range can make life hard for Mages and can even interrupt them while they try to cast their spells. While Knights are typically built to withstand huge amounts of physical damage, they are largely susceptible to magic-based attacks making them a relatively easy picking for Mages casting spell attacks from a distance.
2. Prioritize Progression Of The Main Quests
If you play any RPG, regardless of which variant, you can expect your adventure to be brimming with quests of different difficulty levels and natures. Quests often come with different types and in Lineage W just like most RPGs, the main quest objectives should stand at the top of your priorities. It is an easy enough feat o keep track of your progress through the main quest considering that the current quest objective will greet you on the left side of your screen as soon as you dive into your adventure.
Progressing through the main quest not only immerses you deeper into Lineage W’s lore and the tales that surround its characters and heroes, main quests also stand as your main source of EXP and resources to make your character stronger.
Additionally, your hero’s level, which will largely grow as a result of accomplishing main quest objectives, will also be key in unlocking additional features. Although there will hardly be anything early on to keep you from continuously pursuing the accomplishment of your main quest, you will sooner or later be presented with other quests and activities that may keep you from achieving the main quest targets sooner.
Lineage W provides numerous sources of EXP for your hero as well as resources you need to perform upgrades as well as to help you in your adventure. A lot of main quest objectives will actually have you going across long distances, ignoring everything else along the way.
By clicking on the main quest objective at the left side of your screen, auto-pathing will be enabled and your character will come running towards the NPC you need to interact it or the exact location where the quest needs to be progressed in. Note that you will have to click on the new quest objective to continue on and if the objective involves engaging in combat, auto battle will also be instantly activated.
Beyond all the benefits we mentioned relative to progressing the main quests, its value is much greater at the early part of your adventure. The different features and game mechanics in Lineage W will be taken into account as part of the main quest. By focusing on its progression, you will also be introduced on each menu and feature’s functions, enabling you to take advantage of available means for you to further empower your hero.
3. Join A Blood Pledge As Soon As You Can
Guilds, alliances, clans, factions, and other loosely similarly-termed player groups are to be expected to be a fundamental part of every MMORPG as well as strategy games more than any other game genre. From being primarily an extension of the virtual world’s social features, guild systems have evolved to include exclusive access to certain game modes and features of a game, beyond having extra benefits and conveniences.
Blood pledges are the equivalent guild system in Lineage W and there should be no question as to whether or not you should join one. The question of whether or not you should create and lead your very own Blood Pledge or simply join in on an existing one could be a more prevalent dichotomous choice for beginners. We suggest to opt for the latter, though, as creating and leading you own guild is a lot of work and dedication that requires ample experience and free time.
Once you hit level 20, the Blood Pledge feature in Lineage W will become available and opening one requires your character to be a Monarch. You can still easily join existing ones by checking the list of available Blood Pledges through its icon on the main menu and applying for your chosen group. Some groups will require an approval from its leader first before you can join up while others readily accept you instantly.
At first glance, you will only be able to tell a Blood Pledge’s strength through the number of its members and, perhaps, Blood Pledges that require approval for you to join them may have more serious Monarchs that lead them. What you would want is to be a member of an active Blood Pledge. If you decide to leave one and join another, you have to wait for 24 hours before you can even apply to the next one.
The Blood Pledge system in Lineage W holds more features than what even experienced and veteran MMORPG players might expect. In idle times, you should spend time to explore every tab and every window within the Blood Pledge. For starters, though, it is important to stay active in your Blood Pledge. Be sure to donate once the feature has become available and also engage in its activities as much as you can.
Actively seek more friends from within your Blood Pledge as well. Keep in mind that your Blood Pledge stands as your number one source of travelling companions for quests and challenges you may find difficult or impossible for you to accomplish alone.
4. Plan Ahead With Your Character’s Stats
Beyond pursuing quests one after another, a constant endeavor in every RPG leads to the desire for your character to grow stronger every step of the way. While there are plenty of features in Lineage W that contributes to the growth and development of your character, we consider the character’s stats as the most important.
Although your choice of character class is already an indication of your preference as far as builds and play styles are concerned, allocation of stats earned further customizes your character’s build ever closer to how you want them to perform. Stat points are only earned on milestone levels before your character reaches level 50. Beyond that, though, your character will begin to earn a stat point to allocated with each subsequent level reached.
Deciding on where to put the extra stat point can be a challenge for beginners, especially since you are free to distribute the stat points across all 5 attributes for each character. By the time you play as any of the character classes available, you should already have a good idea of the stat attributes that are most important to them.
Each character class starts off with higher stat allocations on certain attributes, indicating their strengths and potential needs. While there is always an option to deviate from continuing on with the stat distribution, it is best to understand deeper the value of each attribute and how allocating a stat point on it will benefit your character the most.
Once a stat point is available for distribution, you will see an indicator on your character portrait at the upper left side of the screen. If you click on it, you will see available stat points for distribution at the top of the page as well as the 5 stat attributes you can distribute it to below it. STR or Strength affects melee or close combat prowess, accuracy of melee attacks, and critical hit rates of melee attacks. DEX or Dexterity, on the other hand, increases ranged attack damage, accuracy and critical rate of ranged attacks, evasion rate against ranged attacks, and physical defense.
INT or Intelligence increases magic damage, accuracy of magic attacks, critical hit rate of magic attacks, magic bonus, and MP cost reduction. CON or Constitution relates to max HP, HP restoration, potion restoration rate, potion restoration amount, as well as max carrying weight. Lastly, WIS or Wisdom boosts max MP, MP restoration, MP potion restoration amount, and magic defense.
With this, you can consider STR and CON as being the most important attributes for Knights and Monarchs, INT and WIS, being priority stat attributes for Mages, and DEX being the top choice for Elves that want to focus on maxing out ranged attack damage. Then again, perfect builds are often not very delimiting and are not exclusively dependent on the stats you allocate alone. Stats allocated and finalized can still be reset using a Candle of Memories, but it is recommended to have a mindset like the stat allocations you consider are permanent to maintain caution with every distribution.
5. Be Selective With Gear Investments
While most modern MMORPGs make it fairly easy and convenient to perform upgrades and enhancements on your character’s weapons, armors, and accessories, Lineage W incorporates the traditional way of making gears stronger and makes it as challenging and rewarding for players to hold upgraded equipment.
Most modern MMORPGs bind upgrades and enhancements on gear slots, so the enhancements are maintained even after you switch to better gears for those slots. Enhancements and effects lodged on the piece of gear itself, like in Lineage W, should prompt you to think twice before performing an upgrade especially on the weapons, armors, and accessories you equip earlier in your adventures.
Quests will naturally earn you some basic gears to start your adventure with, but you certainly cannot expect to take on more challenging endeavors relying entirely on what you obtain for free. There are shops in towns that sell gears as well and you can craft better ones provided you have the necessary materials. Purchasing from shops will increase your friendship level with the merchant and, in the case of gear merchants, higher grade weapons and armor become available with each friendship level increase.
On the main menu, you can click on the “Craft” feature to see the list of gears you can craft. You may want to delimit the list by ticking the equippable option at the lower left side of the screen and apply filters through the drop-down menu below it. Once you highlight any piece of equipment. The required materials and amount of Adena (basic currency) needed will be shown at the right side of the page. You can also tap on the missing resources to determine the sources where you can obtain them.
Beyond crafting and purchasing gear, enhancing them is a basic feature as well. You will need specific magic scrolls for weapons and armor pieces. It is important to note that gear enhancements are not always guaranteed to be successful. Failing to enchant may also result in the item becoming broken and you will have a limited period of time within which to have it repaired. Repairing can fail as well and success probability depends on enchantment level. A series of fails will lead to higher chances of success, though.
To enhance a piece of equipment, you have to tap and hold on it within your bag, which you can access through its icon at the top right side of the screen. After a quick hold on the item, options on what to do will be shown below the window. Tap on the anvil icon to initiate an enhancement. When it comes to common gears, it is really arbitrary since you may have a great need for some stat boosts to take on current challenges. However, we recommend only investing in gears that you will surely be using for a long time.
Considering the risks involved in enhancing, as well as the trouble and expenses attributable to it, crafting, and even repairing broken items, having more than enough of every resource to be consumed is important. When it comes to higher rarity gears, it is best to ensure that you keep an extra replacement just in case you break the ones you are currently using.
6. Familiarize Yourself With Each Town And Its NPCs
The story campaign in Lineage W sends you to travel to different locations in pursuit of various quests and adventures. Although this would naturally have you visit towns and even talk to several NPCs in the accomplishment of some objectives, there will hardly be time to linger around long enough to familiarize yourself with each new town you discover.
Although we consider progression through the main quests as being the top priority, you will sooner come to discover that pursuing the main quest objectives will become a lot more challenging the more you adhere to it one after another. Taking on other available quests is surely an option to gather more resources and be better prepared for difficult main quest objectives but, at some point, you will have to venture within each town and discover what each NPC has to offer.
Lineage W comes with a mini map visible at the upper right side of your screen and clicking on it shows the world map where you can check various important landmarks that you may have to visit at some point. While putting a challenging main quest on hold for whatever reason, take as much time as you need to visit each NPC in the town you are in.
It is important for you to identify merchants you should go to for your different needs like the general item shop where you can purchase potions and other consumables, weapon and armor merchants, blacksmiths that can repair broken gears, storages to keep valuables you do not want to risk losing, and so on.
It can be a challenge to memorize every important NPCs’ location, especially for players not yet accustomed to open world MMORPGs. You can also mark specific areas as favorites to help you identify locations that you will need to frequently revisit.
7. Accomplish Other Quests For Extra Rewards
While main quests are inarguably the most important quests to push for given its benefits as we mentioned earlier, Lineage W provides players with a ton of additional quests and activities to engage in beyond the main campaign. Given that you will have to cease pursuing main quest objectives at some point considering the challenge level involved, other quests can help you bridge the gap in power and level and make the endeavor a little easier.
While main quests are conveniently accessible via the objective that is indicated on the left side of the screen, there is a “Quest” menu you can access through its icon on the main menu. There are basically 5 categories of quests to pursue with main quests being one of them.
Of course, main quests serve as the narrative guide that immerses you deeper into the world of Lineage W. As you venture into towns and interact with some NPCs, you can chance upon some area quests, which are typically much easier than main quests. Some area quests, however, have prerequisites or conditions you need to satisfy first before the quest becomes available.
One of the quests that can be prioritized over main quests are missions. There are daily, weekly, and monthly missions that reset periodically. Daily missions are typically a bit of grind but not really that difficult. Earning rewards from accomplishing these missions should form part of your regular routine. Achievements in Lineage W are also lodged alongside quests.
Achievements serve as a reward system for reaching certain milestones in your adventure considering almost every aspect of the game. Some of the achievement targets will naturally take time to accomplish but the rewards you receive for hitting milestones can definitely help you in your progression.
Last but not the least are board quests. Board quests are missions typically posted on mission boards in different towns or villages. These usually involve a lot of grind and, to be honest, the first one we took after reaching level 20 was a little more challenging than what we expected. These usually involve slaying large numbers of specific types of monsters. You can opt to pursue this once your progression in main quests have halted.
Lineage W certainly holds a lot more content and features that we cannot dig too deep into in one guide. While we are confident that the basic tips and strategies we outlined here should suffice to give you enough to jumpstart your adventure and progress fast and efficiently. We will be sure to come back after delving further into Lineage W. If you have spent quite some time in the world of Lineage W and have some unique tricks and discoveries to share, do not hesitate to let us know in the comment area!