Soulworker Beginner Tips

Beginners Tips (by Saintone):

1. Know your build in advance. Skill resets are event-only and otherwise cost real money to perform (up to $10 USD for a full tree reset).
2. Understand how energy consumption works. If a dungeon displays it'll use x amount of energy, only half of that is actually used upon entry. The other half is consumed if you either kill the boss of the dungeon or if you hit escape and return to city, the latter of which will give you a prompt saying it'll use the other half of the energy.
2a. Dying to any mob or environmental hazard in the dungeon will give you the option to respawn or abandon in the bottom-right corner of your game UI. Abandoning will send you back to the city WITHOUT using the other half of the energy.
2b. Knowing this, also understand that a majority of a dungeon's EXP comes from killing the mobs before the boss. Only a small percentage of a dungeon's total EXP comes from the boss/clear reward. Meaning you can kill everything up until the boss, die the boss, abandon, and you'll get most of the dungeon's EXP while only using half the energy. This is the most efficient way to level.
3. Gear lasts a reasonably long time. I'd say you only need to update your gear around once every 5-9 levels.
4. Prioritize +EXP on your armor above all though. The amount of armor an upgrade will provide will not mitigate damage by too much. It's a lot more important to get +EXP, especially since we know most EXP comes from mobs.
5. There are two +EXP titles, one of which you won't get while leveling. The title "Repair King Big Hands" comes from accruing a total repair bill of 300'000 Dzenny over the course of your character's lifespan. It provides +10.50% EXP from killing mobs. You will either gain this naturally by the end of the 3rd city, or you can suicide in the District 6 zone to gain repair costs.
6. Titles give stat bonuses. Besides for the EXP one, there is a good and easy to obtain combat title for obtaining 5'000 BP (Battle Points). You'll gain BP for every phase of Steel Graves you pass.
6a. Steel Graves is a challenging tower-like dungeon that you gain access to starting from Candus City (2nd city). You gain rewards from it used to craft Grave Guardian gear, which upgrades into higher grade Grave Guardian gear. The level 55 version of the Grave Guardian gear is used to craft pre-endgame equipment called Aurith gear, making it useful to craft not to use yourself but more as a craft component for the future. You should do it daily.
6b. BP is primarily used to buy Energy Converter (at 28'000 BP) from an NPC in District 6, but may also be used to buy powerful buffing food for future raids.
7. Don't worry about upgrading your gear. You can upgrade your weapon to +4 if you'd like, and when you're ready to switch to your next weapon you can risk going to +5 and beyond on the old weapon instead of just dismantling it. Don't use your Anti-Destruction before level 55, you'll need many of them in the future.
8. Akasha Cards are passive OR active cards. There are two types of Akasha Cards. 1-star and 2-to-5-star. You can see how many stars a card has on the card itself. 1-star cards are crafted from Akasha Relic keys that you'll find often from bosses. They are generally weaker versions of their high-star versions, but the benefit is that they can stack with them. 2-to-5-star cards are obtained from Akasha Transmitter that you'll get for many different tasks such as dungeon progression or quest rewards.
8a. There are also hidden and non-hidden versions of every 2-to-5-star cards. The hidden versions are almost always more powerful than their non-hidden counterparts. Upon a card draw from a transmitter, there's a 30% chance that the card will be hidden. Hidden versions of 2-to-5-star cards CANNOT stack with their non-hidden counterparts, unlike 1-star cards.
8b. Cards have 2 or 3 ranks in addition to their stars. Stars never change when being upgraded, just the number of chevrons on the top left change to indicate a higher or lower rank. To upgrade a card, other cards must be fused into the card to give it EXP. 1-star cards require less EXP than 2-to-5-star cards. BE CAREFUL not to equip a card that has EXP on it that hasn't yet been upgraded. Registering the card to you will remove all EXP currently on the card. Therein, don't put EXP in a card that you don't plan to upgrade to a higher rank before using again. 1-star cards will require a Nebula Card to upgrade to rank 2, and a Galaxy Card to upgrade to rank 3 if applicable. 2-to-5-star cards require two cards of equal star rarity to sacrifice to reach rank 2, and three of equal star rarity to reach rank 3. They do not need to be duplicates of the card, just the same star rarity.
9. Soulworker can be P2W. But unlike other MMORPG where F2P cannot farm their way to catch up to P2W, in this game you can. Almost everything with the exception of brooches can be farmed at a more-than-reasonable rate. Brooches can usually be obtained either from events or you can try to purchase from other players using a work-around method.
10. Grutin Coins are best spent on Anti-Destruction. Not Akasha Transmitters, and not panties or fashion. If you have excess Grutin Coins and cannot buy more than 1 a day, you can move Grutin Coins to an alt, buy the Anti-Destruction on the alt, and move it back to your main.
11. Soulbound in this game means it's account-bound. Meaning anything that doesn't say "Cannot be stored" CAN be moved between characters.
12. In the Premium Shop (located in the bottom right as a red bag icon) you can obtain EVERY DAY one potion that restores 100 Energy Points and a mat that you can sit down on that restore 1 Energy Point per minute. Up to 4 other people can sit on your mat as well. The person who sets the mat does not count towards this 4 person limit and can always sit on their mat. If you disconnect, the mat will go back into your inventory, however the time will still keep ticking. You can place it back down and use the remaining time on it.
13. If you need start-up money to fund yourself gear, feel free to sell a few Weapon Upgrade Chips. They are considered a very important commodity used to upgrade high level weapons beyond +6, and constantly rise with the rate of economic inflation. Sell a few to get a few million Dzenny, keep the rest for yourself. Now you have spending cash.
14. The EXP weapon people talk about constantly is a level 16 Blueprint weapon from Last Carnival episode 4 on Manic difficulty in the first city. It features good stats for it's level and also +10% EXP from mobs, the only weapon in the game that gives EXP. If you upgrade it to +4, it should last you up until level 35-40 before it starts feeling like it falls off.
15. You will always have to do a dungeon on normal mode to progress the story and to unlock the other difficulties. It is almost never worth it to enter hard mode.
16. Manic of episode 4 in a district provides a lot more EXP than the previous episodes due to the sheer increase in number of mobs. You will quickly realize that you will often not be a high enough level to continue the main quest. In this case, go to the PREVIOUS district and go to manic episode 4. Manic episode 4 of the previous district always provides more EXP than manic episode 1-3 of the current district.
17. Usually on weekends or holidays, Gameforge runs a half-energy consumption event.
18. VIP in Soulworker comes in Silver and Gold, which stack. Silver VIP gives 80 more energy every day and 10% increased money gain from mobs. Gold gives 120 more energy, 20% money gain, 20% drop chance, and a number of great marketeering benefits on the auction house. VIP ticks when you are both online and offline and applies to all characters on your account when used.
19. You can farm Akasha Transmitters, Anti-Destruction, and Respawners per alt slot you have. The process takes around 1 to 1.5 hours. Please run the !alt command in chat for additional details.

The forums have a great directory for numerous guides that touch on specific subjects more in-depth than I covered in these tips. You can find class guides, Soulstone guides, Akasha guides, and more here: https://forum.soulworker.gameforge.com/forum/board/34-guides-resources-tutorials/