One roUGe's guide to ballin' on a budget

[wvhills]

Hi all, we've all been chillin' in town before and have seen that pimped out roUGe (you know, the one with all the best equips that money can buy) and been a little envious. We then check their attribute stats out and get even MOAR envious. We, being roUGe's, then sneak of to the auction house to buy the same equips and then think "WHAT!? the elite items cost how much!!!???" Our hearts then sink as we realize that the best cloak costs 250k and we only have 65k. What is a weary roUGe to do? Fear not, your good friend WVHills is here to show you how you can ball on a budget! No, you want have the most uber stats out there but you'll be good enough that any party will be happy to have you do a few runs with them.

There are many reasons why you may not be able to afford the best gear possible. Mine is my time constraints. I've got a lot of other things to do and try limit myself to an hour or less game time a day.

Disclaimer
My roUGing philosophy is we are here to do one thing: Kill things and kill them fast. Therefore, most of the decisions I make lean toward damage over survivability.

Getting Started
When I started out I purchased $20 worth of plat. I used 70 on a starter bundle that included 10 auction slots, 3 pieces of legendary gear, 50 inventory slots and 25,000 gold. The rest of the plat I used to buy the Malison pet.

***pro tip*** the legendary items you get in the bundle scale to your level so wait until your at least level 15 before you buy it.

I leveled to 10 on my own, just using the drops I recieved. When I reached level 10 a friend gave me 10,000 gold and miscellaneous pink and purple equips. You don't need someone to do this for you but it's nice if a friend or guildie does. The main point is do not buy ANY equips until you reach the level cap!. Its a waste of money buying pinks at level 5, 10, etc just to use them for a few days (or hours) then resell. Don't worry about your kill count. You're main focus should be unlocking the maps and leveling up. You can pad your kill stats once you max out and get decent gear.

***pro tip*** save ur low level purples until you can sell them in the auction house. Up until level 10 or so you can sell your low level purples for 500 gold or so. It's not a lot but it definitely helps you come up with some gold to buy potions. Other people aren't as smart as you so they buy equips while they level up. We're smarter so we can make a little gold off of them.

Build
Every time I leveled I put 1 point in str and 5 in dex (none in int). If I had it to do over again I would go pure dex but either one is ok. I have 15,000 kills and 65 deaths so survivability isn't a problem. Imo, you don't really need to pump a lot of str in ur build as long as you have decent equips and go by my play strategy found below. Pets will help out greatly with mana so don't put any in int.

The four skills I have are:
Smoke bomb- increased time, exploding function, 15% damage buff and 20% armor buff
Razer Shield- 20% dodge buff, clear negative effects
Aimed shot- 250% damage on critical
Nox bolt- I think I have them all unlocked in this one but will have to double check.

Leveling up
When you start out unlock all the maps up to travellers outpost. Once in traveller's outpost keep doing watcher runs over and over until you get to level 13. Once level 13 unlock all the way to kragg and do kragg tomb runs until you get to 16.

Pets
Pets are essential in AL. I chose the dog when starting out. The chick at the end of second area will grant you a pet owl. That gave me 3 pets to use (including malision that I bought with plat).
***pro tip*** NEVER feed ur pet! Rotate them out.

I feel like the most important things a pet can give a roUGe are (in order of importance): mana regen, crit/damage (tie) and dodge. Here are the pets I recommend (once again in order): flap jack, granite, horton and malison. Horton is a 5 day reward. It took me a month to get him.

***pro tip*** NEVER buy a pet. After you unlock all maps and level up the next thing you need to do is get some pets. Most of the good pets (flap jack and granite included) drop in rook's nest. So just do rook's nest maps over and over again. DO NOT SKIP ANY MOBS!!! DO NOT RUSH TO BOSS!! Mobs drop pets in rooks nest so if you skip them you are cheating yourself out of possible pet drops. If you get flap jack or granite keep and train them. Sell any of the others you get. This is a good source of gold.

Level 16 equips
Here are the equips I use:
Mighty lifethief of potency, warden helm of savvy, clever ranger leather of security, mystic ring of security, mystic chain of potency.
These give me the following stats (with no pet equipped):
str:60, health 725
dex: 166, bonus damage 183, dodge 19.91, crit 5.15
int: 51, mana 635
damage 122.9, armor 380

These aren't the best stats but I think I spent less than 20k on the whole setup. So, all in all, I think they're pretty good for those of us on a budget. Don't look for the exact same gear as this, it's just to give you a guide of the type of build you can have without spending all your gold. Also, unlike PL and DL your skill damage doesn't seem to be tied solely to your weapon damage. In both PL and DL your skill damage is greatly influenced by the weapon you have. I had the roUGe weapon that glowed green (can't think of the name now but I'll edit when I can) and my damage was around 96. I then bought the mighty lifethief I have now and my weapon damage went up 25. I went to look at my skills and my skill damage only went up by 2. So, if you can't afford lifethief don't worry about it, you'll still be doing the same skill damage.

Play strategy
I do either one of the following:
Charge smoke bomb, use razer shield and attack with weapon until either smoke and razer ends (you'll have 40 dodge with razer shield plus 20% more armor and 15% more damage from the smoke bomb), or
stay out of harms way and shoot aimed shot and nox bolt from a distance.

Which of the two depends on the mobs. You have to learn the maps and use the arrow strategy if there are only 1 or 2 together. If there is a group then use the smoke/razer strategy.

Making gold
right now quests are a great source of making gold. Krybox gives either a 500 gold or 250 gold quest everyday. Also, donatello the turtle (located in ydra forest) gives out 500 gold daily quests.
be sure to do the 4 daily bard quests. Meep bop is available for 100 coins. I'm still saving up for him but he looks like he would be another excellent choice for roUGe's.
Selling pet eggs are also a great way to earn some gold. Like I stated earlier, continue to run rook's nest and sell any of the pets you get besides flap jack and granite.

***I'll be updating this guide with new gear/strategies as new level caps come out***

I hope this helps some of you who are on a budget or don't have hours and hours (or the plat) to spend farming the absolute best gear money can buy.